Building Value from Your Closely Held Business through Mergers and Acquisitions

Copeland Buhl has provided transaction advisory services for hundreds of our small and midsized business clients, collectively representing billions of dollars in value. We’ve seen what can go wrong, and we’ve been there to help our clients’ transactions go right.

Mitigating Risk When Acquiring a Business

Acquiring another business can be a significant step along the road to building the value of your enterprise. Recognizing that every transaction is unique, we take a personalized and collaborative approach to help you identify opportunities, mitigate risks, and provide leverage in price negotiations.

Whether your goal is to expand geographical reach, eliminate competition or diversify your offerings, we support you with our buy-side financial due diligence and quality of earnings support, entity selection, deal structuring and analysis of tax consequences.

Successful Exit Planning Starts Early

When you’re ready to exit your business, the degree to which you sell for your target price often comes down to smart preparation. Your plan may change and develop over the years, but having clarity on your end goal early on and developing a roadmap to get there will facilitate a smooth and successful transition.

Owners of small and midsized businesses often have multiple options for transitioning out of their businesses—such as an internal transition to family members or key employees, a sale to an outside party, or a step back to become a silent business partner—and each option has its own set of operational and tax complexities.

Deciding when to exit the business often comes down to a few very important numbers. How much do you need to net to fund a secure retirement? How much is the business worth today? And what’s the gap between those two numbers?

Our Transaction Advisory Services Will Help Make Sure You’re Prepared

If your business valuation falls significantly short of your retirement goal, we can recommend steps that will help build up the value of the business. For example, it might be time to transition to a more professional set of financial statements or trim excess expenses to boost profitability. Many selling businesses also benefit from buttoning up state and local tax compliance.

All of these steps take time, so it pays to start early. Copeland Buhl can help you map your path to a successful exit, and we’ll walk alongside you through the transition so that you arrive at an optimal, tax-efficient business transaction that meets your personal goals.