Heavy Manufacturing

This one was a doozy.

The business was reliant on the seller, the real estate was owned by a related party and critical to operations, but roughly threefold the price of the business, the industry was cyclical, and limited systems were in place to extract important financial information and key performance indicators, to name just a few issues. Yet we focused on the positives and reframed weaknesses as opportunities. The absence of internal systems became a value-creation play, and we highlighted how a sales-driven buyer could accelerate growth, where the company had historically underinvested. After all, transactions are about selling the future, not past performance.

Our approach generated a competitive field of serious buyers and multiple strong offers. As a second-generation family business, cultural alignment mattered as much as price. What about the real estate? The market for real estate investors and business purchasers rarely overlap. One group wants the real estate exclusively, while the other wants just the business. Threading the needle and finding a buyer who wants both limits the size of the market. Even so, we successfully negotiated the right deal, with the right buyer, on the best terms. The seller became the landlord to the new buyer, and is now receiving rent instead of paying it, with a plan in place to eventually transact with the same buyer on the real estate.

With the family legacy in good hands, our client was thrilled with the outcome.