Tuesday, 4 October 2011

The Best Business Exit Strategies Will Help You Get Out Of A Business When Things Get Ugly

By Eleanor L. Sell


When people go into business for themselves, they rarely expect their company to flop and leave them looking for a way out, but the risk is always there, which is why business exit strategies are such an important part of any business plan. It doesn't matter if you are raking in millions for years, the time will come when you either decide to call it quits or consumers lose interest in your product, so you always have to keep a way out.

One of the easiest ways to get rid of a business is to just sell it out right in what is known as a "friendly sale," a way of just passing the company from one hand to another without all the big business drama. This is best suited to small companies that are run under a single name and are often used to easily hand a company over to its heir, for instance when a father wishes to securely give his business to his son when he retires.

Mergers are the more ideal situation for a large multimillion dollar company, because these permit the original owners to maintain their interest in the company while slowly handing it over to another group's control. This works well, because as the bigger corporation is easing the smaller one into its ranks, the people who once owned the smaller company can still make a living from the company's profits and still work with the company until they are finally bought out for good.

Sometimes things can go south a far quicker than you anticipate and you'll need to find a way to get out from under the company as soon as possible unless you want to be left with no company and no money to show for it. Liquidation is perhaps the best way to make money off of a company that has lost most or all of its value, because instead of selling the company itself, you are actually selling all of the company's valuable assets.

The business exit strategies known as Initial public offerings are a great way for a privately owned company to be sold, one share at a time, to the public sector, but public owned businesses are pretty rare in the US. You could use one of these or any of the other possible strategies to be sure you have a way out before you even get started, and all you need to do is find the ones that suit your company the best.




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