If a sale is somewhere on your horizon, the most valuable work happens before anyone knows you’re a seller. Here is what the disciplined version of the run-up looks like.
18–12 months out is where you decide what “good” means. Before the business is put under a microscope, examine the goal. What do you need the sale to produce financially, for your people, for your own next chapter? Owners who can answer this negotiate better, because they know which trade-offs matter and which don’t. This is also the moment to brief your accountant and lawyer that a transaction is possible, so structural issues surface while there is still time to address them properly.
12–9 months out frame your perspective of the business as a buyer will. A readiness review including earnings quality, customer concentration, key-person dependence, the state of contracts, systems and records tells you what a diligent acquirer will find. Nothing on that list is pleasant to hear late and almost everything on it is fixable early. Prioritise the items that move price or kill deals by locking in key contracts, reducing owner-dependence, and addressing the structure.
9–6 months out you build the information base. Financial statements that reconcile, management accounts a stranger could follow, and a data room that can be assembled without heroics is crucial to the process. Good information does two jobs, it speeds the process, and it signals to buyers that the whole transaction will be as clean as the folder they’ve just opened in your data room.
6–3 months out is where you frame the opportunity. How the business is presented by the growth story, the earnings narrative, and the reasons a particular acquirer should pay properly is decided now, before any approach. The process design follows where you identify which counterparties, in what order, and under what confidentiality arrangements.
3–0 months out you hold your nerve and operate as normal. As the process approaches, the strongest thing an owner can do is run the business well. Buyers ultimately pay for trading performance, and a business that hits its numbers during a sale process is worth more than one visibly distracted by it.
None of this commits you to selling. It secures you options, the ability to respond from strength whether the trigger is your own timing or an approach you didn’t expect.
General information only
This material has been prepared by Daniel Jude Pty Ltd ABN 83 701 985 088 (‘Company’, ‘we’ or ‘us’). Daniel Jude is a corporate authorised representative (CAR No. 001323408) of Sandford Capital Pty Limited (‘FB Corp’) (ABN 82 600 590 887) (AFSL 461981). The material is for general information only and is not an offer for the purchase or sale of any financial product or service. The material has been prepared for investors who qualify as wholesale clients under sections 761G of the Corporations Act or to any other person who is not required to be given a regulated disclosure document under the Corporations Act. The material is not intended to provide you with financial or tax advice and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Although we believe that the material is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness is given, except for liability under statute which cannot be excluded. To the maximum extent possible, the Licensee, Daniel Jude Pty Ltd or any other person do not accept any liability for any statement in this material.