Business Exits By Industry

Selling a Camp

You've learned a lot during your tenure as a camp owner. Now the trick is to convince cautious buyers that your operation is worth the asking price.

Business buyers are a timid lot, even more so now that they are facing an uncertain economic landscape.

Yet everyday, hundreds of listed camps manage to pique the interest of qualified buyers. They do it by paying attention to the details that other business sellers overlook.

Preparing Your Camp for Sale

Like it or not, a good business sale takes time. Attractive camp sales opportunities leverage a long-term strategy to increase the value of the business to buyers. Even though it may take years to adequately position your camp, the amount of preparation you perform will have direct correlation on asking and sale prices. But your efforts to improve your company's position and profitability will only be effective if you invest similar effort into the preparation of accurate financial statements for buyers.

Post-Sale Details

As your campsale nears completion, there is a lot of work remaining to be done. There are several details that still need to be addressed. What will the ownership transition look like? Are you prepared to deal with the tax consequences of receiving a significant sum of money in exchange for your business? How will you prepare your employees for your inevitable exit from the business? Ideally, these and other post-sale details should be addressed early on. But if you haven't dealt with them yet, it's important to have a frank conversation with the buyer, your broker and other professionals as soon as possible.

Why Confidentiality Matters

Highly publicized camp sales are risky campsales. A low-key selling strategy is a low risk activity because you can control who does (and doesn't) know that your business is on the market. But if word leaks out to the wrong people, your competitors can use that information to steal business and damage your credibility. Although it can be difficult, it's important to strike a balance between confidentiality and sale promotion. Brokers and consultants can mitigate the risk by implementing confidential sale techniques.

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