Have you been running a business for many years?
If your business is big and successful enough, an IPO may sometimes be an option.
However, this requires significant amounts of regulatory and compliance work with the various stock exchanges, not to mention the fees associated with the listing process.
You would also have to start subjecting yourself to increased public scrutiny.
You could also consider a trade sale to a competitor.
However this would involve the risky process of revealing important trade information to a competitor and have negative consequences if the sale does not happen.
Even if a sale occurs, the new owners will likely fire staff that have stood by you over the years in an attempt to reduce operational costs.
You are likely also to be made an unrealistically low offer.
Passing on your business to children and spouse may be an option.
It is often that your passion for the business or drive to make it succeed over the years may not be shared by family members.
They may not think that you are passing them an asset but instead find that you have forced upon them an unwanted responsibility or even liability.
This is in reality the default option many business owners choose.
Unfortunately this effectively means that your life’s work becomes almost worthless. You will likely only get to recover part of the residual business value by disposing business assets at a small fractional value.
Even more painful is the fact that you will have to let go of staff who have supported you through the years and who depend on you for their livelihood.
You could continue to run or even try to grow the business.
This is what you have already spent a many years of your life figuring out how to do. You know by now that growing the business to the next level will need you to invest even more money, energy and time. At a certain point, it becomes difficult for a single owner to manage this growth to the next level.
And most importantly, we all only have a limited number of years of life.
Time is the one thing we can never get any more of.
- You realize that life is not just about the endless treadmill of work followed by even more work
- You understand that most precious thing in life is your health and time
- You want to appreciate the other joys in life
- You want to pass on an asset to the next generation
- You want to enjoy a fair financial value from your life’s work invested in the business
- You want to raise funds to also reward and motivate your staff
- You want to raise funds for personal reasons
- You want the option to retain control over the operations of your business.