The challenges faced by the owners of a mid-size, closely-held business are in many ways independent of the industry in which they operate. More typically, these companies share common characteristics resulting from their very nature; summarized as follows:
♦ Management / Family / Ownership are one-in-the-same.
♦ The principals most likely have no career experience other than the family business.
♦ Key managers within the business are typically long term employees who have spent their predominate career working for the company. Other than possibly a financial professional, few if any professional managers have been hired from the outside.
♦ The company does not have a Board of Directors (group of advisors) comprised of independent business professionals other than the company’s third party accountant, and possibly the company (family) attorney.
♦ Overall sophistication of the business (strategy, long range planning, production control systems, financial reporting, etc.) is moderate but typically not leading edge.
♦ The owners of the business most likely have never purchased or sold a business before, and are not exactly sure how to go about it. In this context, common concerns involve a myriad of family, estate, tax and business issues.
♦ The owners of the business do not have a succesion plan, and often do not have a management team in place that can run day-to-day operations in their absence.
If the above characteristics loosely describe your circumstances, Whitehall Capital Corp. is well suited to be your advisor. From our perspective, the summary above describes the type of company that we have successfully sold time-and-time again across a number of industries including: the Agribusiness; Business Services; Energy; Manufacturing (steel, wood & plastics); Real Estate and Rental sectors.
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