You have spent years creating something of real value. Selling it is the most important financial transaction of your life, and the one you have had least practice at. We have guided South African business owners through it for three decades.
Most business sales are won or lost before a buyer ever appears. The owners who get the best outcomes share one thing: they prepared properly, with people who have done this before.
An owner who approaches a single buyer, or accepts an unsolicited offer, has no leverage. Price is set by the buyer. A competitive process, even with three serious parties, fundamentally changes the dynamic.
Messy accounts, key-person dependence, unresolved disputes and undocumented customer relationships all surface in due diligence, and every one chips away at the price or kills the deal. Preparation before the process starts is where the real value is made.
Buyers pay for sustainable, transferable, owner-independent profit. A business generating R50m in revenue with the owner working 80-hour weeks and holding every key customer relationship is worth a fraction of one that runs without them.
From the first conversation to the final transfer, here is how a mandate runs when it is run properly.
Nothing on the record, no obligation. We learn what you have built, what you want from a transaction, and whether a sale is the right move at all. Sometimes it is not, and we will tell you that.
A rigorous, defensible valuation of what the business is actually worth - not the number that wins the mandate, but the number that closes the deal. We also identify the specific steps that will lift the value before any buyer sees it.
We prepare an information memorandum that presents the business properly, address the issues that would otherwise surface in due diligence, and agree the process: who we approach, in what order, and what they see and when.
We identify the right buyers - strategic acquirers, financial buyers, management teams - and approach them under non-disclosure agreements. Your staff, customers and the market learn nothing until you decide they should.
We prepare the data room, anticipate the buyer's questions, and manage the process so that due diligence confirms the price rather than eroding it. Problems found by the buyer are leverage. Problems you have already disclosed are not.
We model every scenario, hold the line on price and terms, and stay at the table through the legal process - sale agreement, warranties, conditions precedent, and final settlement. We do not leave until it is done.
When the business is performing well and you are not forced to. A sale from a position of strength, with time to prepare, always outperforms a sale driven by urgency, ill health or a single buyer's approach. Start the conversation early, even if you are two years away.
A controlled process keeps the market dark until you choose to go public. Buyers are approached under NDA in stages. Sensitive operational detail is released only when a buyer is genuinely serious. It is not foolproof, but a well-run process manages the risk.
The answer depends on your tax position, the nature of the liabilities, and what the buyer wants. It is one of the first things to get right, because the structure affects how much you actually keep. Get specialist tax advice before you commit to either.
You are not obliged to use one. But sophisticated buyers and their legal teams do this for a living. An unrepresented seller is outmatched before the conversation starts - not because they are less intelligent, but because they have done this once and the buyer has done it many times.
Most mid-market South African business sales take six to twelve months from mandate to completion, assuming the business is reasonably well prepared. Preparation issues discovered during due diligence extend the timeline significantly and usually reduce the price. Selling from a position of time and strength consistently produces better outcomes than selling under pressure.
Most corporate finance advisors charge a combination of a monthly retainer and a success fee, calculated as a percentage of the transaction value. The retainer covers ongoing work; the success fee aligns the advisor's interests with yours. Fee structures vary by deal size and complexity. We discuss our fee structure openly at the first meeting.
Business brokers typically list businesses on a marketplace and introduce buyers; the seller then negotiates directly. Corporate finance advisors run a structured, confidential process - they value the business, prepare it for sale, identify and approach specific buyers, manage due diligence, and negotiate and execute through to legal close. For businesses of meaningful size, the difference in outcome is usually material.
A well-run process approaches a shortlist of pre-qualified buyers under non-disclosure agreements before any sensitive information is shared. The information memorandum is released in stages: a blind summary first, fuller detail only to serious, credentialed parties. Staff, customers, suppliers and competitors learn nothing until you choose to tell them - typically at or after signing.
An initial conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Tell us what you have built and what you are thinking about, and we will give you a straight answer about whether we can help and what that would look like.