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Selling a Chemical Analysis Laboratories Business
Selling a chemical analysis laboratories business doesn't happen overnight. It takes a deliberate process to get top dollar for your company.
Selling a chemical analysis laboratories business isn't as simple as listing a power tool on eBay. These days, the business-for-sale market is a hostile place for inexperienced and uninformed sellers.
The economy hasn't squashed the market for chemical analysis laboratories businesses. Like always, unprofitable and poorly positioned businesses struggle to find buyers while sellers who have invested time and effort to prepare their sale are being rewarded in the marketplace.
Sale Costs
In a chemical analysis laboratories business sale, pricing is based on a number of factors, including the costs incurred during the sale. Good brokerage takes a 10% success fee off the top of the final sale price. Professional consultations can also represent a significant expense during the course of a chemical analysis laboratories business sale. Furthermore, your time has value, so you may need to include a personal compensation consideration in your expense estimates.
Leveraging Seller Concessions
It's becoming more difficult to sell a chemical analysis laboratories business without considering seller concessions. In a down economy sellers become bankers; an unwillingness to finance at least part of the sale of a chemical analysis laboratories business can translate into a dead deal. Traditional lenders and investors are gun shy - and that makes sellers a logical funding source for many buyers. If you are unwilling or unable to offer financing, be prepared to offer other types of concessions to close the deal.
Average Preparation Time
There are no effective shortcuts for selling a chemical analysis laboratories business. Since buyers prefer to see evidence of future cash flow, you'll want to to strategically lock in cash flows and increase profits before you list the business. Next, the business will need to be documented in professional financial statements and manuals that facilitate the ownership transition. Since all of this takes time and effort, a chemical analysis laboratories business can rarely be ready for the marketplace in less than six months. A more likely scenario is that it will take more than a year to create the conditions necessary to receive the maximum sale price.
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