Buyer’s Manual

Or: Far from the Madding Crowd of Foundation Kickers

I’m proud to say the best deal I’ve ever been a part of is coming together nicely as I write this.  It’s the dream situation for me to represent – the flexible, reasonable seller, with a genuine goal of easing into retirement over the next 12+ months, a grandchild-filled future that has already been funded through smart, conservative investments.  This seller, the sole owner of a niche manufacturing business, was able to work for decades with his dad – an opportunity he very convincingly calls “a gift” – and now that the patriarch has passed into the great machine shop in the sky, it’s time to sell the business and enjoy a new phase in life.  He is living a dream surely most would like to experience as he does all the sensible things so as to never work again by the time he’s turned 63.

But this story isn’t about my client.  It’s about the person on the other side of the deal, the gentleman who’s buying the business.  This buyer has done things in the past eight weeks that are remarkable and, I hate to say, unfortunately rare.  He started the process by calling – yes, actually dialing up my office line for a conversation, rather than just lazily hitting a button to request more information.  (Did you know that making phone calls is now the sixth or seventh use of the smartphone?  We’re talking old school smiling and dialing!)  He brought a lot to that initial chat – professionalism, energy, and a level of sincere curiosity that created an indelible first impression that this was someone with whom you’d like to spend time and complete a deal… or three. 

When my wife asked me that evening how the day went, I told her I had spoken with a buyer prospect that just seemed different.  I’d sent him our standard non-disclosure agreement and looked forward to receiving and reviewing it with an eye toward setting the follow-up call.  The executed document came in the next morning – at 3:30am, to be precise.  “I don’t think this guy can sleep,” I reported to my wife.  “I think he’s like a little kid on Christmas Eve!”  What I came to learn was that the buyer is likely prone to holiday giddiness because he’s just in his 30’s – practically a toddler when it comes to business acquisition – and as the father of six school-age children, surely he knows a thing or two about being a child at heart. He and his wife have had several children and have done multiple adoptions overseas, sort of a Brady Bunch for a new era, although they’re likely too young to remember that seminal television show that some of us watched with wonder on Friday evenings back in the day.

The buyer’s winning traits are innumerable and he could write a manual on how to go about business acquisition by standing out from the pack.  He’s positive, respectful, bright, collaborative, reasonable – on and on.  Watching him interact with the seller looks like a next-generation passing of the torch, with him straight out of central casting in the role of the son my client never had.  It’s truly a joyful experience watching them interact and plan for what will be a bigger, stronger company for many years to come.

Of course, I shouldn’t be writing any of this – yet.  While the term sheet was recently signed by both of them, the deal is not slotted to close for six weeks from now.  My kids would doubtless say I’m jinxing myself, yet I have no such concern (forget the fact that jinxing isn’t even a thing, you know?).  When the rapport is this strong between the seller and buyer, and when the mutual respect is as off-the-charts high as it is in this case, there are simply no speedbumps that will derail the deal.  This one will close.  And may I be so lucky to have another one so enjoyable in this lifetime.

Originally posted by Chris Bond on June 25, 2015 at 10:32am