Nolo's book, The Complete Guide to Selling a Business, by Fred S. Steingold (Nolo), guides you through the entire selling process. It includes a CD-ROM that helps you create crucial legal documents, including the sales agreement, a confidentiality letter, promissory notes and security agreements, noncompete and consulting agreements, and closing checklists. Or if you'd prefer to hire a lawyer for help with this document-intensive process, Nolo's Lawyer Directory will provide you with detailed personal profiles of lawyers in your area -- all of whom have taken a pledge to treat their clients with respect.
On the other hand, a business that does not generate profits may do well with a going-out-of-business sale. This type of sale can generate instant cash flow and quick turnover. Too many business owners that have not turned a profit, or have cash flow problems, miss this wonderful opportunity. Some reasons they miss out is due to lost energy and/or motivation or because they may not want to admit defeat or failure. Remember it is business—don’t worry about taking it personally. Look for the most valuable opportunities for your business.
One strategy to keep prices high and to maintain profitability was for producers of the same good to collude with each other and form associations, also known as cartels. These cartels were thus able to raise prices right away, sometimes more than doubling prices. However, these prices set by cartels provided only a short-term solution because cartel members would cheat on each other by setting a lower price than the price set by the cartel. Also, the high price set by the cartel would encourage new firms to enter the industry and offer competitive pricing, causing prices to fall once again. As a result, these cartels did not succeed in maintaining high prices for a period of more than a few years. The most viable solution to this problem was for firms to merge, through horizontal integration, with other top firms in the market in order to control a large market share and thus successfully set a higher price.[citation needed]
Buyers aren’t necessarily hungry for the target companies’ hard assets. Some are more interested in acquiring thoughts, methodologies, people and relationships. Paul Graham recognized this in his 2005 essay "Hiring is Obsolete", in which he theorizes that the free market is better at identifying talent, and that traditional hiring practices do not follow the principles of free market because they depend a lot upon credentials and university degrees. Graham was probably the first to identify the trend in which large companies such as Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft were choosing to acquire startups instead of hiring new recruits,[36] a process known as acqui-hiring.
In my case, I signed up with the first broker I spoke with. He seemed like the perfect person to sell my business. After all, he had a background in retail (and that was my industry), he was friendly and best of all he came up with a BIG price tag. Unfortunately, it was too good to be true because he was asking too much. By raising the price he got me to sign the contract but never made the sale. After six wasted months without even a lead, I finally decided to move on. Learning from my mistake, I interviewed 12 more brokers before signing another contract.
As the mutual fusion of two companies into one new legal entity, a merger is a more-than-friendly acquisition. Mergers generally occur between companies that are roughly equal in terms of their basic characteristics—size, number of customers, the scale of operations, and so on. The merging companies strongly believe that their combined entity would be more valuable to all parties (especially shareholders) than either one could be alone.
When a target company is acquired by another company, the target company ceases to exist in a legal sense and becomes part of the purchasing company. Acquisitions are commonly made by using cash or debt to purchase outstanding stock, but companies can also use their own stock by exchanging it for the target firm's stock. Acquisitions can be either hostile or friendly.
