When you're selling your business, knowing when and how to share sensitive information, such as sending financials to a potential buyer, is crucial. It's a delicate balance between transparency and protection, ensuring you provide necessary data without compromising your business's security. This guide will navigate you through sending financials, ensuring your information remains protected while fostering trust with potential buyers.
Send Your Adjusted Financials
Before sharing your financials with potential buyers, you should have prepared them by making financial adjustments discussed in the previous post. Doing so portrays your business accurately and favorably and aids in a smoother valuation process. As a reminder, here are the key adjustments to consider:
- Remove One-Time Transactions: These are revenues or expenses that are not expected to recur in the future. Removing these from your financials helps present a more consistent and predictable financial performance for the potential buyer. One-time transactions can significantly skew your business's financial performance. For instance, a large sale of an asset or a lawsuit settlement might temporarily boost or depress your financials. By excluding these, you give a clearer picture of your business's operational income.
- Exclude Non-Operational Income and Expenses: This involves separating the financial results of your business's core operations from those that are incidental or peripheral. Non-operational income and expenses include earnings from investments or costs related to restructuring efforts. These figures need to reflect the day-to-day operations of your business. They could mislead a buyer about its ongoing profitability.
- Adjust for Owner-Specific Expenses: Businesses often have expenses specific to the current owner and may not apply to a new owner. These should be identified and adjusted accordingly. Examples include salaries for family members who aren't active in the business or personal expenses that run through the business. Adjusting these expenses can provide a more accurate representation of the business's financial health and its potential profitability under new ownership.
Protecting Your Information
The security of your financial information must be balanced. When sending financials to a potential buyer, it's paramount to protect your information through several strategies:
- Screening Buyers: Implementing a rigorous screening process helps identify serious buyers from those who may simply be shopping around or, worse, looking to gather competitive intelligence. This process should include verifying the buyer's identity, understanding their business history, and assessing their financial capabilities. Doing so significantly reduces the risk of sharing sensitive information with the wrong parties.
- Phased Release: The phased release strategy acts as a trust-building exercise between you and the potential buyer. Starting with high-level financial summaries provides them with enough information to maintain interest without compromising your business's sensitive details. As the buyer shows continued seriousness and passes further due diligence checks, please provide more detailed and specific financial documents.
- Centralized Data Rooms: A centralized data room offers encryption, access control, and activity tracking, ensuring only authorized individuals can view your financials. Additionally, these platforms can provide analytics on who accessed what information and when giving you insights into the buyer's areas of interest or concern. This level of control and monitoring protects your information and helps you manage the negotiation process more effectively.
Tips for Screening Buyers
Screening buyers is an essential step before sending financials. Here are some tips to help you screen effectively:
- Verify Identity and Background: This involves more than just a simple Google search. Employ due diligence processes such as checking their business history, financial stability, and reputation in the industry. Consider engaging professional services to conduct a thorough background check. This ensures that the entity you're dealing with is legitimate and has a track record that aligns with a genuine interest in acquiring your business.
- Understand Their Intentions: This step often involves direct conversations where you can ask probing questions about their vision for the business, how they plan to integrate it with their existing operations (if applicable), and why they believe your business fits their strategic goals. Their ability to provide detailed and thoughtful responses can be a good indicator of their commitment and the potential success of the acquisition.
- Request a Letter of Intent (LOI): The LOI should include the purchase price, the structure of the deal, and other pertinent terms, such as confidentiality and exclusivity periods. Receiving an LOI doesn't just indicate serious interest; it also gives you a basis to evaluate the deal's feasibility. Furthermore, it allows you to weed out those unwilling to commit to the process, saving you time and resources in the long run.
When to Send Your Financials
Knowing when to send your financials is as important as knowing to whom. Look for these signs that a potential buyer is serious and trustworthy:
- They've Passed Your Screening: The screening process should filter out those who are merely curious from those with a legitimate interest in acquiring your business. The screening implies that the potential buyer has demonstrated their seriousness through a detailed review of their financial background and business history or by providing satisfactory answers to your probing questions. This milestone is a crucial indicator that sharing more detailed financial data may be appropriate.
- They've Shared Their Plans: This involves detailed conversations about how the buyer intends to grow, integrate, or pivot your business post-acquisition. Such discussions reflect the buyer's commitment and give insight into their strategic thinking and potential fit with your business's culture and future direction. When a buyer is transparent about their intentions, it establishes a foundation of trust, making it safer to share detailed financials.
- They've Provided References or Proof of Funds: Proof of funds can come in various forms, such as bank statements or financial guarantees from credible institutions, ensuring the buyer has the necessary resources to complete the transaction. On the other hand, references can offer insights into the buyer's business acumen and reliability. These pieces of evidence serve as a litmus test for the buyer's seriousness and financial readiness, giving you the confidence to disclose your financials.
Sending financials to a potential buyer is a significant step in selling your business. You can navigate this process securely and efficiently by preparing adjusted financials, protecting your information, effectively screening buyers, and recognizing the right time to share your financials. Trust and transparency are the foundation of any successful transaction, starting when you consider sending financials.
