Succession, in practice.

Is it too early to start?

• Business succession with a partner5 min read
• How to sell a business shortly after buying it6 min read
• Selling a business checklist6 min read
• Can you retire from your own business without selling it?5 min read
• Should I sell my business?5 min read
• What’s the formula for valuing a business?4 min read
• Handing over a practice or a firm when its value sits in people and licences4 min read
• What a buyer reads in your commercial register extract before opening your accounts4 min read
• Sixty-five is not a sale date4 min read
• Adjusting EBITDA6 min read
• The strong franc and selling an export-driven Swiss SME4 min read
• Industrial SMEs or service SMEs4 min read
• What a poorly drafted shareholders’ agreement costs you when you sell5 min read
• The vacation test doesn’t prove what most owners think it does3 min read
• Valuation multiples4 min read
• What waiting to sell actually costs in an aging market4 min read
• What a recurring revenue line costs when nothing proves it4 min read
• Telling clients and suppliers about a succession4 min read
• Getting your numbers ready3 min read
• Documenting key processes before a succession5 min read
• What a succession diagnosis delivers, and why it comes first4 min read
• Ten dimensions of a succession ready company4 min read
• Why lawyer and trustee alone cannot carry a succession4 min read
• What succession advice really costs5 min read
• Make your company transferable5 min read
• The seven most common handover mistakes4 min read
• Company valuation before a succession5 min read
• Why so many successions fail4 min read
• Succession planning4 min read
• Preparing your SME succession4 min read

See all 30 articles

Someone wants to buy. What now?

• Should I sell my business to private equity?6 min read
• How do you make sure the buyer actually pays?4 min read
• Is the sale of a business public record?5 min read
• Name a price or let the buyer offer?4 min read
• How do business owners retire?4 min read
• Earn-out agreement6 min read
• How to find a buyer for your small business4 min read
• Paid in the buyer’s shares5 min read
• Keeping a minority stake after you sell5 min read
• Turning down an offer without closing the door6 min read
• Handing over a valley business when the pool of buyers is the village7 min read
• How many weeks of exclusivity to grant a buyer5 min read
• The seller’s non-compete clause6 min read
• The red lines to set before the first offer, not during the negotiation5 min read
• Asset deal or share deal4 min read
• The Swiss buyer shortage4 min read
• Selling a minority stake first, keeping control of the rest3 min read
• What running a competitive sale process with several buyers actually costs4 min read
• Seller warranties4 min read
• The price that moves after closing3 min read
• Selling in lots4 min read
• Price escrow5 min read
• Financial buyer, strategic buyer, family office5 min read
• Legal due diligence4 min read
• Ruling out a competitor as buyer is a mistake, not caution3 min read
• Earn-outs in a business sale4 min read
• Confidentiality during a sale5 min read
• Letter of intent4 min read
• What buyers really examine4 min read

See all 29 articles

Should my children take over?

• Should you give your business to your children or sell it to them?6 min read
• How do you pass your business to your children?4 min read
• Marital property and company shares5 min read
• Selling to a third party when the children said no4 min read
• Running the company before owning it6 min read
• The family council4 min read
• Two children want to take over6 min read
• Putting your child to work in the business only tests something if the job is real3 min read
• The son-in-law or daughter-in-law who takes over3 min read
• The spouse left out of the decision to sell3 min read
• One child takes over, the others don’t4 min read
• No family successor?5 min read
• Third-party sale, family transfer, or MBO4 min read

See all 13 articles

Could my managers buy it?

• Who on your team retires when you do?5 min read
• What happens to your apprentices when you sell your business?5 min read
• Selling to your employees is not the gentle option.4 min read
• The successor’s impostor syndrome4 min read
• An external CEO before the sale5 min read
• The management buyout isn’t the easy option it looks like3 min read
• The internal successor who isn’t ready5 min read
• What a management team that runs without you actually costs4 min read
• Management buy-ins3 min read
• The board of directors in an SME succession4 min read
• Retaining key employees during a business succession4 min read
• Preparing an internal successor5 min read

See all 12 articles

What does the bank want from me?

• Selling a sole proprietorship7 min read
• AHV contributions after the sale6 min read
• Taking excess cash out before the sale5 min read
• The acquisition holding6 min read
• The bank makes renewing your credit line conditional on stabilisation6 min read
• Selling a stake to a successor or opening the capital to an investor4 min read
• Buying back pension years before a sale4 min read
• Changing canton before a sale5 min read
• The CFO role3 min read
• Seller financing5 min read
• The tax ruling before selling a business5 min read
• Private or business wealth5 min read
• There is no Swiss succession timeline, there are twenty six4 min read
• Indirect partial liquidation6 min read
• Company real estate and succession5 min read
• How the buyer finances the deal, and what it means for you as the seller4 min read
• Succession and taxes in Switzerland4 min read

See all 17 articles

What if it cannot wait?

• How to sell a business quickly5 min read
• Should I sell my business or close it?6 min read
• Selling for health reasons5 min read
• A buyer approaches you out of the blue6 min read
• The owner becomes unavailable overnight4 min read
• Building a sale file in ten days when the window is short5 min read

And me, once it is done?

• The buyer sells again two years later4 min read
• Six months of handover often beat two years6 min read
• Managing the wealth from a sale4 min read
• The owner’s solitude during a sale3 min read
• Keeping a board seat after you sell4 min read
• Keep every decision, or delegate a written scope4 min read
• What to do with your days, once the company is sold3 min read
• Earn-out with a job attached, or a clean exit4 min read
• No longer the boss3 min read
• A year after selling4 min read
• Selling your business is not a release, it is a loss3 min read
• Negotiating your own sale wears you down in a different way than you’d expect3 min read
• The post-closing transition5 min read
• Managing your time as an owner during a succession4 min read
• Are you inwardly ready to hand over your company?4 min read

See all 15 articles