Gill & Lane are committed to the service of smaller clients - families, small business people, sporting & voluntary associations etc.

We pride ourselves on your ready access to the person undertaking your work to keep you up to date.

selling your business?

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To ensure that the sale of a business proceeds quickly a business owner must take a number of steps even before listing the business for sale to properly prepare for the sale.

To make the task more pleasant for yourself as well as the buyer you should take a number of steps in preparation. This preparation may also help to reduce your legal costs.

More often than not business owners and buyers expect a sale to be completed within of few days of a buyer agreeing to buy the particular business.

Your preparation should commence long before you engage an agent to sell or you commence advertising.

We've set out some suggestions for you below in the form of a short Check List. It may be of some use to you in your preparations for a sale

Don't exaggerate or misrepresent the performance of your business or your client base etc in your advertising, negotiations or in your documents. If you do that and the buyer fails in the business, there is a good chance you will be sued and compensation may be payable by you to the buyer.
If you bought the business, you should have the original contract available. It may have some useful information about what was bought by you , such as a detailed list of the plant and equipment, any rental agreements and the like
Are your accounting records up to date? It is almost certain you will be asked records for the last 2-3 years and if they are presented in a neat ready form, it will be useful to both you and the buyer. The buyer should present them to his / her accountant and is usually required to provide copies of the trading figures to their bank
Who owns the business? It is surprising that occasionally business operators are not sure who actually owns the business they wish to sell.

If the business is owned by a company, are you selling the business or are you selling the ownership of the company shares?

Is it a partnership or are you the sole owner. Or may be it is owned by a Family Trust?
If you are renting premises for the business, have a copy of the lease ready for inspection by the buyer.

Check your lease and speak to the owner about transfer to the buyer? Or is the buyer likely to want a new lease?

Is your rent up to date? If you have been a difficult tenant, you may find that your landlord will now get his pound of flesh.
If you are leasing or hiring equipment for your business, have you spoken to the financier to receive its consent to the transfer of the equipment. Get all the documents for the transfer from the financier and read them.
Most often the goodwill of the business is sold as the major asset.

What else are you selling -
what quantity of stock and at what value? What about old unsaleable stock?

rights to telephone and fax numbers?

customer lists and records?

have a full list of the equipment that you are selling together with depreciated values from the last tax return.

Yellow Pages, Trade Journals, On Line advertising and the like. Have you paid advertising in advance? Do you wish to be reimbursed for that?

Do you have an Internet Domain name registered? How is that going to be transferred to the buyer?

Will your employees remain with the new owner? And what about employee entitlements? Remember such matters and Long Service Leave, Holiday pay and any other entitlements and make sure that you are aware of the extent of your liability, as you will be required to adjust these amounts or pay your employees out, on settlement

Is a particular employee necessary for operation of the business?

Are you prepared to help the Buyer? The Standard contract provides for a period of assistance by the Seller both before and/or after the settlement date

Are you sure you do not want to remain in the same industry or are you going to work for a competitor of the new owner? In that event, the Buyer will want an undertaking from you in the form of a Restraint of Trade preventing you from actively soliciting your existing clients for business for a term of years

Speak to Gill & Lane or your Accountant before you place the business on the market! You may receive some further guidance and have the opportunity to look over the type of agreements that may be needed to give you assistance in gathering all of the required information.