Sell Your Business

As a business owner, you’ve spent time and money building a leadership team that can run your firm competently and confidently. When you decide the time is right to sell the business, assembling the best team of expert advisers to plan for the sale is every bit as important. We look at the top three experts you will need to help you find the very best buyer for your business. The tax adviser. Tax planning will make a huge difference to the proportion of the sale price you get to take home. Don’t put off finding a good tax adviser until later in the sales process. You should appoint an adviser at least a year before putting the company up for sale, or even before that. It’s wise to seek advice as soon as selling seems like a possibility. An expert tax adviser will put in place a number of strategies, including preparation for capital gains tax (CGT) optimisation, covering any reliefs such as retirement or Business Asset Disposal Relief (previously known as Entrepreneurs’ Relief). They will ensure the structure of your business is optimum, thereby eliminating any ambiguity when it comes to adhering to tax law and offering clarity to buyers.

Anyone thinking about selling their business needs to go into it knowing what to expect, and often that might come as a bit of a surprise. The following are some of the things you need to know, and some strategies that can help you cope: Selling a business takes time: It can often take as much as 18 months to sell a business, and in some cases even longer. There’s typically a preparation period when you’ll have to ensure all the necessary paperwork is in order, and then the process of actively marketing the business to prospective buyers. Ensuring a business is priced realistically is essential to attract buyers.