Albeit.ie - Exit Preparation

Exit planning is the comprehensive process of preparing a business owner for their eventual departure from their company. It aims to maximise the business's value, ensure a smooth transition, and secure the shareholders personal financial future.

Be it a trade sale, retirement, or investment from private equity, Albeit can help you to plan well in advance of the sale process. It normally takes 2 years plus, to get a average sized SME ready for sale. We will help you prepare your company so that buyers looking to buy, will see an excellent business that they can grow ever bigger. I can help prepare your business by implementing the changes necessary within your business in order to maximise shareholder value.

I can help in both valuation and attracting buyers by preparing long term financial models and forecasts that will transcend the eventual and inevitable due diligence process. I will position the business for divestiture and confidentially provide the 'deck' to potential buyers.

Common Exit Strategies

Trade / Third-Party Sale: Selling the business to an outside buyer.
Employee / Management Buyout: Selling the company to current employees or management teams usually with private equity backing.
Liquidation: Closing the business and selling off its assets in an orderly manner.

Key Components of a Plan

Business Valuation: Understanding exactly what the business is worth and how to increase that value before exiting.
Tax Planning: Structuring the exit to take advantage of available reliefs, such as retirement relief or entrepreneurs relief.
Strategic Timing: Planning the exit 3–5 years in advance to ensure the business is at peak performance.
Contingency Planning: Preparing for and avoiding circumstances which can force an involuntary exit.

The Planning Process

Set Clear Goals: Define whether you want to retire, start a new venture, or pass the business to family.
Value Acceleration: Focus on improving "business capital" (human, structural, customer, and social) to make the business more attractive to buyers.
Operational Readiness: Ensure the business can run efficiently without the owner's daily involvement by providing succession planning
Professional Guidance: Engage legal advisors to handle sale agreement and any complex tax and legal requirements.

Value Acceleration

Get you focused on the financials

You need to have the key financials of your business readily available, and understand them. This means that you have, and understand, the monthly pack of cash flows, profit and loss account, and balance sheet, together with monthly budgets and forecasts. We will explain all the jargon that most small business owners leave to their accountants or somebody else in the business to manage. Many SME owners hate talking about finance, but it is going to become a crucial conversation for you to have with whoever comes in to buy your company.

We will build out a the monthly financial models that capture and communicate every financial piece, every measurable KPI of the business. This allows you and your team to see exactly how your business is performing, enabling quick decisions, and leaving you to work ON the business rather than IN the business. Comprehensive monthly management information, easily communicated, will allow a potential buyer to quickly gain confidence in the financials of the business.

Work on your operational deliverables

Service & Operations are where you meet your customer expectations. Its where your deliverables make the customer happy so it needs to be effective and efficient. You need documented processes and procedures for every part of your operations, and that is where we can help.

This is where you can really implement operational procedures and standardise your delivery so that your customers get the same product / service every time and so that your employees know what they are expected to deliver. Work with us to build out these procedures and streamline your services.

Ensure you have a sales and marketing plan

There is a lot of work to be done here before we even get to a sales and marketing plan. What is your vision for the business? What are your 1-year, 5-year, and 10 year plans for the business? This is about understanding why you are in business before you start planning anything.

Before creating your sales and marketing plan for the year(s) it is really important that you can articulate a clear understanding your target customer / demographic. We will review your marketing strategy in its entirety and develop a methodology to do it more effectively and more efficiently.

Look after the important assets in your business

HR is such an important function in business. Have you got the correct employee contract in place? Is their a job description for each employee? Contracts, handbooks, policies, the list goes on and it is vital to a buyer that you have all this in place, its legal, and correct. We need to review all your HR procedures, and if there is any missing, we will put them in place.

But its not just policies and procedures. Its a question of who is the right employee for the job in the first place. Do they actually want to be in the business? Basically do we have the right people in the right places. Years go by very quickly, and suddenly you can have someone working in the business who has no interest in the job but is just there to get paid. We need to review all staff and see who is passionate about the business and who wants to push it to the next level.

If we can do that, you will be amazed at the difference this makes in your company. Is it easy, no, but we will be with you every step of the way

Review your ICT infrastructure

Wouldn’t it be nice to have somebody come into your business without an agenda to sell you a piece of IT infrastructure and review what IT you have and how it could be used better? We have seen many companies using IT that their IT provider has sold them because it is in the interests of the IT provider to sell them rather than what the business needs are.

You don’t need a server room if you have five users in your business. You don’t need a CRM system if you are not using advanced CRM practises and functions. What you do need are simple IT systems that help drive efficiency in your businesses and makes the business easier to operate.

Review your business policies

Depending on the business and size of the business, you may need a health & safety audit, local authority permissions, chemical license, food hygiene, or confined space regulations, to remain compliant. We will conduct an inspection of the workplace, review your safety operations and supporting documentation, report any shortcoming and make recommendations on what needs to be implemented. We will then work with you to get these recommendations implemented to ensure you remain fully compliant even in areas you may not have considered.

If you’d like to find out more about our Exit Planning services, then please complete the contact form or email EXIT@albeit.ie for a free consultation. We can book a discovery day at your business to find out if you could benefit from having an Exit plan in your business today.

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