The Art of the Possible: Mergers & Acquisitions

You poured your heart and soul into making your business the best that it can be. Now that you’re ready to move on, you deserve a return that reflects all that hard work. But the process of selling a business is complicated: where do you find the right person to buy it, and how do you agree on a fair price? To complicate matters, for most business owners, this will be the first and last time they conduct a transaction of this magnitude. So, it’s important to get the advice of people who have been there before.

BJ Green sees all sorts of sales from his role as Cadence Bank’s Georgia Commercial Banking Executive. As for Mark Loeffler, Co-Founder and Managing Director of boutique investment bank VRA Partners, his job is to actually run these sales processes for small and mid-sized businesses. Together, they have a wealth of knowledge on valuations, mergers, and acquisitions—what BJ calls: “The Art of the Possible.” So, if midsize M&A is an art, consider these two da Vinci and Michaelangelo.

On this episode, we’ll cover the timeline and steps of the M&A process, ways to improve your valuation, and how to find the right partners. You’ll learn how to identify your objectives, navigate your team through a sales process and keep your business humming during it all. So, let’s merge our experiences and acquire some new knowledge on the art of selling a business.

Highlights:

• What are your goals in selling the business? (3:55)
• How to handle unsolicited offers (5:59)
• Valuation: what goes into it (9:05)
• Why valuations are currently high (12:41)
• “The secret sauce”: What makes a company attractive to buyers (14:34)
• How preparation can improve your company’s value (15:58)
• Think like a buyer (18:47)
• A sale is a team effort (19:11)
• M&A is really creating a new partnership (24:39)
• Sale timeline and process (26:11)
• Managing your business during a sale (31:19)
• Give yourself a head start (35:30)

Links:

· Cadence Bank Website

· Cadence Bank Twitter

· Cadence Bank LinkedIn

· BJ Green LinkedIn

· VRA Partners Website

· Mark Loeffler LinkedIn

Feedback:

If you have questions about the show or topics you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producers, sheena.cochran@cadencebank.com or danielle.kernell@cadencebank.com