Profile of the Business Buyer

Transferring ownership to a family member

• Children
• Other family members

When a family member takes over your SME, it’s crucial to consider how to transfer power to them without harming the interests of other heirs. In such cases, tools such as splitting the company, separating real estate, or creating a family holding can help solve these issues.

Transferring ownership to staff member(s)

• Group of managers of the company (LMBO: Leverage Management buyout)
• Executive group with a financial investor
• Executive group with an external manager (LMBI)

In such cases, it’s necessary to ensure that interested parties are properly advised and, if necessary, to help them with a progressive transfer of the company, an earn-out clause, or a seller’s credit.

Selling to an external company buyer

• Competitors, customers, suppliers
• Industrial investors
• Financial investors (LBO: Leverage buyout),…
• Manager or group of managers

When the potential buyer of a company is a competitor, the confidentiality of the transmitted information is crucial. All competitors will be interested in receiving precise information about the company being sold without any real acquisition project. However, such potential buyers should not be neglected since, in most cases, competitors have a strategic interest in buying and knowledge of the business that can facilitate negotiations.
For the transmission of information, the data room principle can be used.

Going public on the stock exchange

This is a possibility open only to large SMEs that have shown significant growth with regular and recurrent positive results over the last 5/7 years.