Depending on the positioning of your company and the associated future prospects, but also on your personal preferences, either a strategic investor or a financial investor can be the optimal partner for your company succession. Our recommendation in this regard is: Approach the evaluation without biases and discuss with us the pros and cons of different investor types. We will review the situation of your company and your personal preferences with you and present the investors who align best with your needs.

We have a large network of suitable buyers in numerous industries and are always able to locate the optimal partner for you. Our database of over 600 qualified national and international financial investors and family offices enables us to find the most suitable successor for you from this group of buyers as well.

We strongly advise against entering into an exclusive deal with just one interested party. This severely limits your options and deprives you of the opportunity to thoroughly evaluate and select the best partner based on factors like purchase price and various other terms and conditions through ongoing comparisons.

If you are planning an external company succession, meaning you intend to sell your company to someone outside the family or to an external investor, there are several recommendations you should consider.

1. First of all, you should start preparing the sales process in good time. This applies to both the organisational and economic development or restructuring of your company as well as to your own career and life planning after the sale. Both topics usually require some time in advance, which you should consider.

2. Establish a strong second-tier management team in your company whom you trust and who supports you. Please consider in the timing of your sales process that this process typically takes an average of nine months. During this time, it is extremely important that your operational business runs smoothly and according to the business plan. Otherwise, potential buyers may quickly have concerns, and you may become vulnerable to a reduction in the purchase price. In addition to your operational tasks, you will also have to deal with transaction-related tasks, such as management meetings with potential buyers, purchase price negotiations together with your M&A advisor or the compilation of documents for due diligence. This dual workload can be alleviated by a strong team within the company.

3. Be prepared for the fact that a buyer expects a qualified transition after the acquisition. This entails that you remain actively available to the company for an appropriate transition period after the sale.

4. Enhance the appeal of your company to potential buyers by ensuring it is well-organized, with clear business processes and a proficient management team in place. Prospective buyers will seek a well-established business that facilitates a seamless transition after a transaction. This also entails maintaining a strict separation between corporate and private affairs, preventing any compliance issues during the sales process.

5. Ensure that all financial records and accounting data of your business are thoroughly prepared, digitally accessible, and consistently up to date. A transparent and detailed control system impresses every potential buyer and significantly enhances the achievable purchase price for your company.

6. If you identify employees within your company with potential for leadership, you should develop them in a timely manner and introduce them to the buyer as your operational successors. Additionally, having a qualified second tier of leadership in place, to whom you can delegate all relevant tasks and responsibilities, is crucial. The key is being able to assert with confidence: “I can take a three-week vacation without the need to concern myself with the affairs of the business.”

7. It is highly advisable to seek professional support from an M&A advisor at an early stage. Even before the start of a sales process, we provide you with a clear sense of the achievable purchase price, at no cost. We discuss with you the right time to start or the feasibility of wishes that are important to you for your business succession. Because we also have a high interest in seeing your goals come true.

As a successful entrepreneur, you know your company and your industry inside out! However, the sale of a company cannot be compared with any activity from your operational business. Even for your tax advisor M&A transactions are not part of the daily business or his core competency.

In contrast, your M&A advisor possesses extensive and long-standing experience in organising and structuring a company succession. They will guide you through the entire process of your company succession with confidence, utmost professionalism, and a wealth of expertise. This includes, for example

The answer is: YES. We successfully conclude over 95% of all company successions for our clients. Why? Because we talk to you in detail and conduct "expectation management" before we take on the mandate. We give you a reliable indication of the purchase price you can achieve, talk to you about the entire sales process, your tasks and all the activities we undertake for you as advisors. Last but not least, we show you very concrete ideas about who might be suitable as a buyer for your company succession. As a rule, strategic investors as well as financial investors or so-called family offices come into question as buyers. We have long-standing relationships with well over 600 investors. We know the decision-makers, we know which sectors are currently being invested in, the sizes and the conditions. This distinguishes us from many of our market competitors and gives you security for your company succession.

Company succession is complex in many ways and it would be presumptuous to list all the possible obstacles at this point:

Various problem areas or obstacles can arise in the context of a business succession. Company sales are complex transactions that require careful planning and execution as well as a good legal protection. As a successful entrepreneur, you usually have little detailed knowledge of the many pitfalls and their negative consequences in the context of a M&A transaction. But there are many things you can prepare for very well in advance.

Professionally prepared marketing documents must contain all the information necessary to enable a potential buyer to make a non-binding but concrete purchase offer. Missing or unfortunate information can lead to a buyer's misjudgment and thus to unexpectedly low or incorrect purchase price offers, possibly even to rejections.

The right buyer must be found who is both willing to pay the desired purchase price and meet the general conditions you desire. The lack of suitable buyers can slow down the sales process, possibly stop it or lead to a significant re-evaluation of the M&A strategy. As a rule, a professionally identified group of buyers is much larger than you might think from your operational point of view.

Due diligence can be a high burden on the seller, which should not be underestimated. Every prospective buyer conducts a thorough acquisition due diligence regarding business model, finances, tax, company law, technology and, if applicable, environmental issues, in order to identify and verify all relevant information about the company. This process is very labour-intensive and time-consuming for both buyer and seller, as extensive documentation and information must be obtained, provided and analysed. For this, a seller needs discipline and stamina as well as good advisors to be able to meet the information needs of a prospective buyer. A frequently seen effect of poorly conducted due diligence on the part of the seller is a reduced purchase price offer compared to the first offer, which some sellers then accept out of necessity.

Sellers and prospective buyers often have different ideas about the value of the company and the amount of the purchase price. These differences often require creative bridging mechanisms as a compromise solution for both sides. Professional M&A advisors can mediate extremely well here and bring about acceptable solutions for both sides.

Towards the end of the sale process, the commercial agreements are cast into contracts and you need to find a highly experienced lawyer who specialises in business succession. However good your personally known lawyer may be for your company in day-to-day business, they will always be inferior to an M&A specialist under the typical time pressure of a contract negotiation and will not be able to ensure the successful Closing. It is therefore strongly advisable to engage a specialist lawyer for M&A transactions to draft the contract.

The best time to settle your business succession depends on various factors. Basically, a good time to sell is whenever your business has a strong financial performance and stable growth trends. Potential buyers will be more interested in a business that shows positive results and a successful vision for the future.

In addition, it is advantageous to sell during a period when valuations in your industry are high and the forecasts for the future are promising. Favourable market conditions facilitate the sales process and increase the value of your business.

Your personal goals and life circumstances also play an important role in determining the right time to sell. If you are already well past retirement age, a buyer will tend to be cautious about the purchase price because they believe your room for manoeuvre is limited. If you retire at too young an age, they may suspect the reasons for this in the business model of your company; in this case it is therefore important to openly explain your personal reasons for the sale.

A good time to sell the business is also when you have sufficiently developed, prepared and trained a possible internal successor.

Medium-sized family entrepreneurs have usually optimised their annual financial statements from a tax point of view. However, this approach is not always optimal for a company sale and a high purchase price. In this respect, free yourself from tax optimisation practices and show the financial strength of your company!