Services / Selling your company
Selling your company
The buyer is not only buying the company. They are buying the team that runs it.
Preparation for founders and management teams presenting to private equity in a sale process: the management presentation, the buyer meetings and the questions about what happens after you sell. For one person or the whole team, alongside your M&A advisers.
What the buyer is listening for
By the management presentation the numbers are already in the data room. In the room, the buyer is deciding how far they trust the team: whether the CEO sounds in control of the plan, whether the CFO sounds sure of the numbers, and whether the people at the table sound like one team.
A founder who has told the story a hundred times often sounds tired of it, or sounds like he is selling. Neither helps the price.
The questions we rehearse
I ask them as the buyer would, and we work on how the answer sounds as much as on what it says.
Why are you selling now?
What happens to the business if you leave?
Which customer worries you most?
Why should we believe the forecast?
Who in the team is staying, and why?
What would you do differently with our money?
What we work on
The first ten minutes. The opening of the equity story, said so that it sounds like conviction and not like a pitch.
The handovers. CEO to CFO to the rest of the team, so it sounds like one team and nobody contradicts anybody.
The questions on the numbers. When the buyer pushes, the voice is what tells them whether you believe your own forecast.
The numbers without the slide. A buyer notices when you need to look at the deck to give your own margin. We rehearse until you do not.
What it is not
I do not write the equity story or the numbers. That is your work and your advisers’. I work on how it sounds when you present it and when you defend it. Everything is confidential, and I sign your NDA before I see anything.
Format
Two to four sessions before the first buyer meetings, and the intensive in the days before the management presentation: two sessions of two hours, or the four hours in one day.
For one person or the whole management team. Online, or in person in London or Madrid. In English or Spanish.
The intensive costs £1,000 per person.
Why me
I spent ten years in banking and corporate finance, at HSBC, EY and JLL, so the language of a deal is not new to me. And ten years as a professional opera tenor, where you learn what pressure does to a voice in front of an audience that is judging you.
Questions
Do you work with our M&A advisers?
Yes, if you want. They own the process and the material. I prepare the people who present it.
How soon can we start?
Within days, if the date of the management presentation is set.
Is it confidential?
Completely. I sign your NDA before I see anything, and I never name the companies I work with on a sale.
How much does it cost?
The intensive before the management presentation is £1,000 per person. For the whole team, write to me with the date and who is presenting, and I send you a short written proposal within two working days.
It might be a board meeting, a hearing, an investor pitch, a promotion panel or a team that is not getting its message across. Just send me an email, there is no form. I reply within 24 hours and, if it makes sense, we have a 20-minute call. If your date is less than a week away, put it in the subject line. Or start with a free voice read: send me two minutes of you in a real meeting and I will tell you what I hear.