Our proven Sale process minimizes risk and maximizes reward.
When it comes to process, we have it figured out.
LEARN MORE

the experience, process and integrity to
sell your business for maximum value

EXPERIENCED

Over a decade of deals done. Over 100 valuations, 18 engagements, 15 businesses sold in the trailing 36 months.

LICENSED & INSURED

Fully licensed and accredited Business Brokerage authorized to trade in the sale of businesses in Ontario.

PROVEN SALE PROCESS

Our comprehensive 10 stage, 250 process addresses every aspect of the sale process to sell your business for maximum value within the shortest time.

TAXATION STRATEGIES

The selling price is not what you take home. Taxation plays a major role and we have the strategies to ensure you take home the most from your sale.

CERTIFIED PROFESSIONALS

Accredited Certified Business Intermediary™
Accredited Certified Mergers & Acquisitions Professional™

ETHICAL & PROFESSIONAL

We are governed by not only one but two code of ethics to ensure we act ethically and professionally at all times.

SALE READY PROGRAM

Step by step program to prepare the seller and their business for the eventual sale and achieve maximum value. A Sale Ready business is easier to sell and achieves higher valuations.

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE

Crossbridge Business Brokers is a licensed Commercial Real Estate Brokerage fully qualified to intermediate the lease or sale of the property related to the sale of the business.

WE HAVE ALL THE SERVICES YOU NEED TO PREPARE AND SELL YOUR BUSINESS

Preparing and selling a business for maximum value is a complex process that requires understanding of corporate governance, government regulations, taxation, operations, finance, marketing, business law, valuations, contract negotiation and more. Don’t trust your business to just anyone.
  • Valuation Analysis
  • Saleability Assessment
  • Sale Ready Preparation
  • Marketing & Advertising
  • Engaging & Screening Buyers
  • Offers & LOI Negotiation
  • Due Diligence Administration
  • Purchase Agreement Support
  • Closing Process Management
  • Transition Support
  • Tax & Estate Planning
  • Capital & DeBt Financing

10 stAGE
PROVEN process TO SELL YOUR BUSINESS

Our SALE PROCESS  takes the uncertainty out of the sale, minimizes risk and maximizes reward.

Preparing and selling a business for maximum value is a complex process that requires an understanding of corporate governance, government regulations, taxation, operations, finance, marketing, business law, valuations, contract negotiation and more.

Our proven 10 stage, 250 step process manages each step of the sale taking out the uncertainty and reduce the risks to ensure a successful sale. 250 steps may seem like a lot but that’s how detailed we are in managing the sale process. From your initial idea of selling to the last day of your transition, we work with you at every step to manage the entire sale process including collaboration with advisors, accountants, lawyers, lenders and landlords to ensure you get the best result possible.

"Without a process the result will always be uncertain"

10 STAGE
250 STEP PROCESS

01

PRE-SALE ASSESSMENT

Establish value and saleability expectations

The Pre-Sale Assessment is a no-obligation and confidential assessment of your business to determine value and saleability. It is our first look at your business and becomes our initial point of reference. The objective of the Pre-Sale Assessment is to understand your exit strategy, determined the value and saleability of your business, establish the most probable selling price, and identify how long the sale will take.

The process consists of a series of meetings where we learn about your business to understand growth potential, what drives value, threats and risks, and opportunities to increase value before we go to market. It is an opportunity for you, to see exactly how we work and validate our capability. During this period, clients often learn things about their business that they may not have previously known.

Once the assessment is complete, we will present our assessment of value and saleability, along with our recommendations of how to maximize the value of your business. With these facts, you can decide if it makes sense to proceed. If you decide to proceed, an Engagement Agreement will be formalized and signed to progress to the next step.

02

Sale Ready Preparation

Preparing the business for sale to reach maximum value

The Sale Ready is an optional program developed to maximize the value of your business. As a result of our Pre-Sale Assessment, we will have recommendations to increase value, decrease risk and properly prepare you personally to maximize the sale. You may choose to implement only the recommendations that significantly impact value or you may choose to implement them all for maximum value. The choice is ultimately yours.

The Sale Ready program involves defining your exit objectives, developing an exit strategy and detailing a tax plan to maximize the net proceeds of the sale. Over a 12 week period, we will analyze the 10 key pillars of your business to determine the top 100 value drivers, establish your discretionary earnings, determine growth opportunities, discover untapped potential profit and identify risks that may devalue the business.

The objective is simple, the more we know about your goals, the more effectively we can position the sale to achieve them. The more we understand your business, the better we will be able to speak intelligently about its earnings, operational capabilities, growth potential, and negotiate the best deal possible for everyone.

It comes as no surprise that a Sale Ready business is easier to sell and achieves a higher valuation.

03

Document Preparation

Compiling sale disclosure and due diligence documentation

Selling your business will require you to disclose information about your business to a buyer. This information consists of financial statements, licenses, insurance policies, customer and vendor contacts, insurance documents, employment agreements, asset lists, etc. Properly preparing the disclosure documentation will provide for a seamless and quick sale process.  

Preparing the documentation early helps capture potential issues that may arise later in the process and possibly derail the deal. There is nothing worse than being at the tail end of the negotiation to realize a key contract is missing, a license is not transferable or a lien exists which might delay the sale. These types of issues can destroy confidence and jeopardize negotiations.  

Preparing documentation in advance of engaging a buyer will save time, ensure the momentum of negotiations and allow you to keep running your business instead of searching for documents. Prepared documentation also protects you from the buyer claiming you did not disclose material aspects of the business. Remember that if a buyer is unsuccessful, they may claim they were misled and that you didn’t provide full disclosure about the business.

We know exactly what information a buyer needs and what documentation is required for each phase of the sale. Our process helps prepare what is essential to the sale, ensure proper disclosure and protect you. 

04

Marketing & Advertising

CBS / CIM preparation and buyer analysis

The marketing stage is perhaps the highest risk to a seller as poor marketing and advertising can expose that your business is for sale. This exposure could have a serious impact on your business, customers, employees, lenders, and in fact, the entire sale process. The importance of a well-developed marketing plan is fundamental to attracting the right buyer while maintaining the confidentiality of the sale.

Our Marketing & Advertising process starts by developing a marketing strategy of how we intend to market the business, followed by a comprehensive buyer analysis so we know who we are marketing to and finally an advertising strategy to attract quality buyers.

Marketing strategies such as disclosing a selling price, conducting an auction with broad participation or a private auction, advertising locally or globally, confidentiality, or how aggressive to advertise are all examples of what we will consider.

Advertising strategies vary based on the business, but can include contacting CEOs directly, contacting competitors, mailing or emailing teaser sheets, marketing to our existing buyer pools, our M&A partners, Private Equity, and global groups of buyers. We use multiple tactics and multiple advertising sources simultaneously to make sure the highest impact is achieved.

05

Engaging Buyers

Contact, qualify and document interested parties

We believe that attracting the right buyers requires a focus on quality over quantity. Accepting to negotiate with poorly qualified buyers can lead to months of frustrating negotiations, lost time, lost money, and the risk of your confidential information being exposed to the wrong buyer.

This is especially important when conducting a broadly marketed sale and engaging multiple buyers at a time. Buyers will be relentless in asking for detailed information about you and your business. This stage needs to be handle properly to keep buyers informed, engaged, and motivated while maintaining confidentiality. Since we know precisely what buyers need and will have prepared it in advance, we can quickly qualify numerous buyers at the same time and engage them quickly to progress to the offer stage.

Our multi-layer screening process personally contacts,  profiles, and documents every potential candidate to provide you with the facts so you can identify the winners and filter out the tire kickers. We will make sure you know about each buyer's objectives, synergies, motivation, and financial capability to confirm they are an ideal buyer.

We screen and qualify buyers every day and have become very good judges of those who are ready to buy and those who are shopping for a deal. This experience when combined with our screening process, is what allows us to find you the ideal buyer.

06

Offers & Negotiations

Negotiate a non-binding commitment to acquire the business

Receiving an offer is perhaps one of, if not the most exciting part of the sale process. There is nothing more special than to experience multiple buyers expressing interest to buy your business.  

The challenge is that no two offers are the same and comparing apples to apples can be difficult. Additionally, offers at this stage are most often non binding and the buyer reserves the right to change their interest as more information is revealed. Some buyers employ a tactic of providing a vague but bullish offer only to drive down value later in the due diligence process.

We have extensive experience in negotiation and know exactly what should be in an offer. We meticulously control the offer process to ensure each buyer has the information they need to provide a comprehensive and quality offer. We work with each buyer to refine their offer to ensure it meets your expectations. Most importantly, we review each offer with you in detail to identify any issues that may lead to problems later in the process.

We know that even though buyers submit an offer, the negotiations continue and will evolve as the deal progresses. Our custom-developed Term Sheet document captures the negotiation progression after the offer to keep track of what each party has agreed to. This helps avoid negotiation backtracking, enables legal counsel to understand what has been negotiated and expedites preparation of the Purchase Agreement.

07

Due Diligence

Discovery period for the buyer to validate facts about the business

Once an offer has been accepted, the due diligence phase commences. It is the point where the buyer and their advisors are allocated a period of time to validate what has been disclosed and conduct a deeper analysis of the business. The due diligence phase has a history of being the most difficult phase and is typically where deals collapse. This is often caused by incomplete disclosure, which leads to assumptions or misinterpretations by the buyer.

We know that the best way to achieve success in the due diligence stage is through a well informed buyer. The more a buyer knows about the business, the clearer their understanding is of what they are buying and the fewer surprises there are later. There is also a lesser chance they will change their mind or their offer. That said, providing too much information early on could be dangerous if the buyer doesn't buy your business.  There is a balance act of providing proper disclosure of the facts while withholding specific details until due diligence.

Knowing this, we spend a considerable amount of time preparing the disclosure documentation well in advance of engaging any buyer. We know what most buyers need to conduct due diligence and compile it into a secure and controlled data room early in the process. Once we reach the due diligence stage, we can quickly release due diligence documentation, as required. This expedites the due diligence process and keeps deal momentum while accurately controlling your most sensitive and confidential information.  For our clients the due diligence process is most often uneventful because we'd done our work beforehand.

08

Purchase Agreement

Binding agreement between buyer and seller

The final phase of the negotiation process involves reducing the exact details of all the negotiations into a definitive Purchase Agreement which is often either an Asset Purchase Agreement or a Share Purchase Agreement. The Purchase Agreement is the binding document detailing the terms and conditions of the sale. The Purchase Agreement also includes additional documents and schedules such as financials, contracts, lease assignments, employee agreements, non-compete agreements, etc.

The Purchase Agreement also defines the price allocation which has tax implications for both buyer and seller. The price allocation is the breakdown of what portion of the purchase price is allocated to each of the asset classes of the sale. Careful attention must be placed in negotiating the price allocation.

Perhaps the most important consideration of the Purchase Agreement are the liabilities, representation and warranties made by the parties as these tend to survive well after the closing date. Other considerations include Material Adverse Effects, permitted liens, indemnifications, working capital mechanics, performance guarantees, etc.

We intermediate the entire Purchase Agreement process from exchanging information, assisting either parties counsel, preparing schedules, issue resolutions, negotiation and final review. We do this to ensure accuracy in the final document and to expedite the process. Our process also keeps you well informed so you know precisely what you will be agreeing to.

09

Closing Process

Closing conditions and regulatory documentation

The Closing Phase is the period of time whereby the Purchase Agreement has been signed but the transfer of the assets and funds has not yet taken place.  At this time, each party's counsel is busy finalizing closing documents. There may also be closing conditions that need to be satisfied or waived before the closing date. In some rare instances, the final signing and closing process all happen on the same date.

The challenge with the closing period is that the buyer has committed to purchase the business (subject to possible conditions) but does not have control over what is taking place in the business. The seller does not have the funds in hand yet and is often hesitant to make decisions that could affect the buyer or the company's performance. The buyer wants to begin transitioning while the seller is reluctant until payment is received. During this time both parties are usually on edge and feel vulnerable. Without proper coordination, the transition and performance of the business could be impacted both before and after the close.

We have been in both the buyer and seller's shoes, therefore, understand their needs and have the expertise to engage both in a mutual "soft" transition strategy. A “soft” transition allows the buyer to preplan the major aspects of the transition and support the seller who continues to make the decisions necessary to operate the business. Simultaneously, our team continues to assist to close any conditions and support the lawyers to ensure the closing timeline is met. Our closing checklist helps make sure the closing is fully executed as planned.

10

Exit Transition

Training and transition of the business to the buyer

In almost all negotiations, the seller is formally obligated to assist the buyer in transitioning the business. This means onboarding the buyer in all aspects of the business including client retention, vendor account transitions, employee retention, vehicle registrations, service contracts, information technology assets, and intellectual property transfer, just to name a few.

It also includes training the buyer in the seller's daily duties and responsibilities so the buyer can continue to operate the business without interruption. Without a proper transition plan, many details can be missed affecting the performance of the business and dragging out the transition until any concerns are settled.

We know that the immediate success of the business is directly proportional to the quality of the transition. We  place great emphasis on a developing your transition plan with you early in the sale process and then negotiate that plan with the buyer in the offer phase. The transition plan outlines exactly the training and support you will be providing right down the the hours of operation and how much you will be paid.  

The transition plan ensures the buyer gets the training and support they need to assume control and you remain confident that the transition is defined and limited and does not extend beyond what was agreed.  This is especially important if you are owed money after the sale (vendor loan, holdback, etc.).  Remember that the more successful the buyer is, the less risk there is to payment defaults or disclosure recourse.

WE VALUE AND PROTECT YOUR COMPANY’S CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION

Selling your business will require you to disclose confidential information about your business. Financial statements, price lists, employee details, marketing methods, customer lists, etc., are all confidential information that makes up your "secret sauce" which makes you successful. This is in most part the value of your business so be very careful who you give it to. In the wrong hands, this confidential information could help a competitor and have negative impacts on your customers, employees and the business overall. Considering you may engage multiple buyers in the sale process, how your confidential information is managed, stored and disseminated to buyers should be a top priority to prevent it from getting into the wrong hands.

Having been in your shoes, we value your confidential information as if it were our own and protecting your confidentiality is our most important priority. We follow a process with strict rules in how we manage your information securely and it consists of mainly two parts.

1. How we hold your information:
We have a privacy policy and adhere to The Personal Information and Electronics Act (PIPEDA). All information shared with us is stored on highly encrypted enterprise-grade servers that reside in Canada. We use data rooms to exchange information rather than unsecured email or instant messaging. After the transaction is completed, we provide both parties with an encrypted USB drive containing the information shared during due diligence. We then delete non-regulatory required information from our servers and clean the data footprint.
2. How we release your information:
Our number one rule is that we do not release any confidential information unless you have provided your consent. Our second rule is that no information is released to a buyer without a confidentiality agreement in force. Our third rule is that we only engage buyers that we have screened and that you have qualified to receive the information. Our multi-layer buyer engagement process helps ensure we engage only quality buyers.

Rest assured that we take every precaution to ensure your “secret sauce” is kept confidential and only released in a controlled manner that you agree to.

how we attract the right buyers for your business

Our process of attracting qualified buyers consists of two phases: a marketing plan to target the right buyers, and a quality screening process to qualify those buyers. We’ve learned that attracting just any buyer is a recipe for attracting the wrong buyers who will waste your time, steal your information, drain your motivation, and prevent you from focusing on quality buyers. This is the premise for why we’ve put so much effort into developing a comprehensive marketing plan and quality screening process.

Our Marketing Plan begins with developing a Marketing Strategy that outlines how we will market your business, including the degree of aggressiveness and confidentiality you wish to use. Various strategies will need to be considered. Some examples are whether or not to disclose price, whether to hold a broad auction vs a private auction, when to engage competitors or not, etc.  

Once we have a firm understanding of the marketing strategies, we can focus on the buyer analysis. To develop strategies to attract ideal buyers, it is important to understand who they are. The process of evaluating an acquisition candidate will include evaluating their annual revenue, financial stability, acquisition synergies, employee count, production capacity, ability to manage the business after the acquisition has closed, etc. In this way, we can easily filter out tire kickers and determine quality buyers.  

The final step of our Marketing Plan involves the advertising strategy. In this step, we establish exactly how we will advertise your business locally or internationally. Advertising strategies vary based on the business, but can include contacting CEOs directly, contacting competitors, mailing or emailing teaser sheets, marketing to our existing buyer pools, our M&A partners, Private Equity, and global groups of buyers. We use multiple tactics and multiple advertising sources simultaneously to make sure the highest impact is achieved.

The key to attract quality buyers involves screening each buyer. It is important for us to emphasize up front that even though we screen potential buyers, it is always your final decision as to whether or not to work with them on the sale of your business. Our aim is to provide as much information as possible about every buyer to help you determine whether they are someone you wish to share confidential information with.

The first step in the screening process involves the buyer signing a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA). If they are not prepared to sign an NDA, they are not contractually prepared to protect your confidential information leaving you exposed. Our opinion is that without an NDA, we simply cannot proceed.

Once the NDA is signed, the second step is an interview with the buyer. While we will bring all buyers to your attention, each buyer is interviewed personally before they are referred to you. In the interview process, we inquire about their motivations, synergies, qualifications, experience, and of course their financing capabilities, just to name a few.

Having interviewed a buyer, we complete or have the buyer complete a Buyer Disclosure Form (BDF), which is provided to you as a summary of the discussion and qualification of the buyer. The BDF form, in combination with our recommendations, will give you a good perspective about the buyer to decide whether or not to engage them.

Attracting and engaging buyers can be a time-consuming process requiring you to answer endless questions and share your confidential information. Eliminating unqualified buyers early will save all parties time and disappointment. Our Marketing Plan combined with our screening process is the winning formula to attract high quality buyers to ensure your successful sale.