"company owners have been on the verge of doing deals which would have severely undervalued their true worth."

"Action was taken to stabilise the finances and give the owners the breathing space to step back and reconsider the value of the offer"

"Both Companies enjoyed a better than hoped for outcome."

Even in the trickiest of situations — business owners have more options than they realise. In two cases I have worked with recently, company owners have been on the verge of doing deals which would have severely undervalued their true worth.

In one case, the company faced a business environment shock that undermined the future of their entire sector. Worried that the business could not outlast such an event, the directors decided a sale was the best option. This led them to entertain offers that were far lower than the value they knew was in their business.

In another, the directors, exhausted from months and months of responding to evolving changes in business conditions and cash dehydration, saw their options dwindle. Worse still, their energy to battle on, ran thin. Typically, once the idea of a sale comes up, the range of options goes down.

It's at exactly this point, we have discovered, it's important to introduce a new energy for discovering alternatives and to take concerted action that ensures that the business sells for a price commensurate to it's true value, if eventually, a sale actually takes place.

In both cases, action was taken to stabilise the immediate financial situation and give the business owners the breathing space to step back and reconsider the value of the offer they were being made. It's this focus on concrete back office finance work that releases the company's directors from attending to short-term financial needs and goals, to working on executing commercial strategy — precisely their area of strength and expertise.

Both companies enjoyed a better than hoped for outcome. The first renegotiated markedly improved sale terms: while the second decided against selling altogether. This proved to be an equally sound commercial decision. Working itself out of its cash crisis, it reached a place where it was more than ready to prosper again.

Ravi Purohit