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Selling a business

Selling Overview

Whatever the motive, nearly all business owners eventually decide to sell one of their most valuable assets: their business. When they do it’s vital to obtain professional advice to achieve a swift, smooth, and hassle-free transaction without affecting the goodwill of the business. At the same time you’ll want to maximise the selling price and complete the sale as soon as possible.

Advent are here to help with your best interests at heart and help you overcome any hurdles. We are a market leader providing a specialist service – we sell businesses!

Our knowledge and expertise means we can do that as effectively as possible. And with comprehensive regional, national and international marketing strategies we ensure maximum exposure to potential buyers whilst maintaining the utmost discretion. We are the professional, proactive agents you can trust to find committed buyers and willing sellers.

Our dedicated service will keep you informed throughout the process together with regular updates. Our hand-picked negotiators take great pride every business placed with us. And because they receive a commission upon each successful completion you can be sure they’re motivated to work as hard as possible in your interests.

We’ve forged invaluable links with solicitors, accountants, banks, independent financial advisors and stock takers to ensure you receive the best advice as well as facilitating the sales process. Like all successful companies we listen to our clients’ comments and continuously strive to improve our services and to sell ever more businesses in a discreet manner.

The Process of Selling

Step 1: An appointment is made for one of our friendly experienced consultants to visit you at your business and provide a free, no obligation, discreet business appraisal and explain Advent’s marketing strategies.

Step 2: Once you’ve decided to go ahead, our consultant will visit again and conduct a detailed report of your business, which will contain sufficient information for a buyer without revealing you business name or location. Photographs will also be taken where relevant.

Step 3: Within two weeks you’ll receive your Vendor Pack containing your own colour brochure, the advertising copy and details of the marketing. While you are on the market with us, we believe that you should know exactly how the sale is going. That's why you’ll receive regular updates and never be left in the dark. When you meet one of our consultants you’ll see in detail everything that we do to ensure that your business is sold quickly and confidentially.

Costs Associated

Here are some of the likely fees involved in selling a business:

Legal/solicitor costs – these can vary tremendously. It’s vital to work with commercial solicitors with the relevant experience, as business transactions can be very intricate and detailed.

We work closely with several national solicitors who have the commercial expertise and provide a professional service with reasonable charges.

Taxation liabilities – dependent on your personal circumstances. Your accountant is in the best position to advise you on this matter. Alternatively we can put you in touch with professional accountancy practices that provide specialist taxation services.

Stock takers – the cost for this is normally shared between the vendor and the purchaser. Costs tend to be a small proportion of the transaction value. We work closely with an approved national association whose fees are reasonable.

Landlord costs – these are normally paid by the ingoing tenant or purchaser in the case of leasehold businesses.

Agent’s commissions – our fees are dependent on how quickly we feel we can sell your business, and are mainly results oriented.

Energy Performance Certificate – Almost all businesses will need an energy certificate which will have to be made available to any potential purchasers. We can recommend a professional, national company to take you through the appropriate procedure.

The fees also vary dependent on what kind of package you require. We’re told our fees are neither the cheapest nor the dearest, but extremely competitive when you consider our unrivaled service and marketing presence.

We will always confirm fees in writing before your instruction. You will always know exactly where you stand with no surprises later on. You can rest assured that we are politely aggressive when it comes to selling your treasured possession and will use our best endeavors to reach a satisfactory sale.



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