FERGUSON WHITE SERVICES
For over 50 combined years, the partners at Ferguson White have worked in Mergers & Acquisitions, helping business owners exit the businesses they have spent many years of their lives building. Our vast experience — from operating and divesting our own companies, from starting our own businesses to working on Wall Street as investment bankers at the highest level — it all provides us with the unique skill set to help you exit your company effectively.
If its time to retire or move on to do something else, you may be interested in selling 100% of the stock or assets of your company. Take the cash at closing and walk away to do something else. You may be required to help through a transition period post closing.
If you want to bring in investment dollars and a partner but feel more comfortable maintaining control of your business, you can bring in a minority partner by selling some of your stock while keeping majority ownership.
A very popular exit strategy is for a seller to sell the majority of their company’s stock while retaining a minority portion of stock to sell at a future date. As an example, a seller could sell 75% of his/her stock now and retain 25% for sale at some point in the future, we would assume when the company is much larger and the stock worth more money. Some very important “pro” seller attributes to this type of strategy:
The value of the 75% stock paid to the seller is not the pro rata 75% value, but actually closer to 90% of the pro rata value.
The value received by the seller for the future sale of the 25% stock in this example, is oftentimes equal or greater in value than that stock (75% in this example) initially sold by the seller.
The capital used to invest in the Company to facilitate growth (additional people, new locations, new equipment, etc) is from the acquirer and not the seller.
This type of two sale process can continue indefinitely into the future for a seller if they wish to continuously retain some portion of stock each time the sale of the company takes place.
This type of multiple exit strategy can be ideal for family businesses where the older patriarch wishes to exit while the younger son or daughter will remain to facilitate growth and grow the family’s remaining stock, or for multiple partners where the timing of their exit from the business being sold varies.
This is a wonderful strategy to continuously cash in on the sale of the Company that the seller (s) have built.
We can provide you with a company valuation at no cost whenever requested.
Similar to selling minority equity, we can help you get growth capital either via the sale of stock or simply by attaining debt.