Far Superior Exit Strategies for Larger Businesses (Ideally £700k+ EBIT)
"Floating a business is often the ultimate ambition for a business owner and comes with game changing financial upsides. The majority of people believe that it costs millions to achieve this and is out of reach from all but much larger businesses. That's simply not the case."
As an exit strategy, floating a business is a totally different proposition to selling a business. Arguably, it shouldn't be seen as an exit strategy at all, as your business will likely need your leadership for a minimum of 2 to 3 years. That said, simply selling your business can take a very long time, and most deal structures require the owner to remain in a position for close to this time period anyway. The significant benefits of a public listing could make that 2 to 3 years well worth it, and a fascinating part of your entrepreneurial journey too.
The most obvious benefit is the ability to achieve a MUCH higher price for your business than you would otherwise achieve by selling your business privately. But there are many more significant advantages besides this.
Selling is a binary process. You have either sold your business or you haven't. Floating a business gives you total flexibility. You can stay in control or step down, at a time that suits you. You can sell some of your shares, perhaps to fund something you really want or need in your life, as and when you need it. Or you can eventually sell all of them.
Significantly, as a publicly listed company you will have funding, in the form of your own currency, that you can use to grow your business, further increasing the value of its shares. You have access to different financial instruments, you can raise capital for growth and you can recruit a higher calibre of people and skill sets that are attracted to that fact that you are a publicly listed company. You may also find that you can tender for contracts that would have otherwise be out of reach.
Most SME's are put off, either by the process of floating or the cost of floating. When sticking to conventional methods, this is what causes many to fail to achieve their aim when they do give it a go.
Simon Berry Investments has two different routes to Public Listing, both of which massively reduce the cost and time required to getting a business to flotation. The nature of your business will determine which might suit you best.
The first is what we refer to as a 'Direct Listing' where we focus on taking your business and floating it directly on a public exchange. This is a creative but proven model and avoids a huge amount of the cost and time that it conventionally takes to take a company public. The net result is your company, on a public market, with its own identity, and free to take itself forward from there.
For those businesses that don't quite fit the criteria for the Direct Listing, we have a second strategy. We have access to to already publicly listed companies that are looking to acquire as part of their own growth strategy. Their very growth strategy is 100% focused on growth via acquisition.
This 'Reverse Merger' process is the easiest way to achieve the vast majority of the benefits of floating your own business, whilst dramatically decreasing the risk, cost and arduous process of listing. It is much faster, much cheaper, and much less stressful fro the business owners. Whilst floating a company on the market itself takes huge due diligence, time and cost; an already public company is effectively free to acquire any business it likes. Via this strategy, your business would be avoiding the very tripping points that prevent so many companies from listing themselves.
Requirements
We are actively seeking businesses that have an EBIT of £700k+ (we may consider companies just short of this, dependent on sector and other factors), that are debt free and that are based in the UK, US, Canada, Australia or Europe.
If you would like to learn more about these concepts, please don't hesitate to get in contact and we can put some time aside to look at how suitable your business might be for this and run you through the process in detail.