M & A Advisory

Stump & Company specializes in assisting shareholders who wish to sell their businesses. For many reasons, business owners seek to sell their business; however, they frequently do not know how to professionally and realistically value the company, solicit qualified buyers or structure and close a transaction.

Our background and experience in successfully closing transactions make us leaders in dealing with the intricacies of business ownership and the issues of selling a business. Our Four Issues Facing Selling Shareholders will tell you if you are ready to sell.

All assignments to sell a company are based upon an exclusive contractual engagement with the business owner. We spend great amounts of time upfront with the owner(s), the Board of Directors, and other company advisors to qualify their true desire to sell the business.

The next step involves an in-depth valuation of the business to ensure that the business owner's price expectation is in line with the market valuation. It is critical to properly value the business prior to exposing the company to prospective buyers.

Once a valuation of the business is established, a targeted prospective buyer list is prepared and reviewed with the business owner. Each name is carefully selected and qualified prior to soliciting their interest as a prospective purchaser. This target list is carefully developed from all types of buyers: strategic buyers, foreign buyers, financial buyers, and entrepreneurial/owner-operator buyers.

Final negotiations with one or more prospective buyers typically results in an acceptable Letter of Intent, which outlines the basic terms and conditions of a proposed deal. From that point forward, we work closely with the owner and his legal and accounting advisors to structure the most advantageous transaction. The increasingly complex legal, tax and environmental issues of closing a transaction require skilled negotiations and in-depth attention.

We have successfully closed over 400 transactions.

Valuations

As described above, valuation is a key factor in successfully selling a company. In addition to valuing the companies we are retained to sell, we often will prepare valuation reports for non-selling situations, such as estate planning, ESOPs, insurance underwriting and tax disputes.