TO SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE A SALE, THE PROCESS TAKES TIME

Once a business is taken to market, it typically it takes anywhere from six to eight months to canvass all the potential Buyers, conduct the site visits, negotiate an acceptable Letter of Intent, properly perform due diligence, and agree all the legal documents including the Purchase Agreement, Non Compete, etc.

Occasionally we are not able to get a business sold in that time frame. In most of these instances the reasons are beyond our control. For example, when 9/11 occurred, the US economy almost ground to a halt with businesses reluctant to make investment decisions. On September 11, 2001, ASG had a number of businesses in various stages of the process. A number of potential buyers decided to put a halt to acquisitions, and the few that were still active significantly lowered the amount they were prepared to pay for a business.

In consultation with our clients, we concluded that we should just take those businesses off the market and revisit the situation in six months or so when hopefully the economic prospects were brighter. As it turned out we took the majority of these businesses back to market within then following year and were able to successfully get them transitioned.

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