Strengthening Buy-Sell Agreements from a Business & Valuation Perspective

Chris Mercer’s newest book, Buy-Sell Agreements for Closely Held and Family Business Owners: How to Know Your Agreement Will Work Without Triggering It is set for publication August 1, 2010.
Buy-sell agreements are among the most common yet least understood business agreements and many are destined to fail to operate like the [...]

Until yesterday my new book, Buy-Sell Agreements for Closely Held and Family Business Owners: How to Know Your Agreement Will Work Without Triggering It, has had the benefit of my personal editing and the help of a few friends.  Yesterday, we sent the manuscript to a professional editor who, hopefully, will work miracles with anything [...]

This post is written specifically for my session on LinkedIn, which I’ll be giving the afternoon of June 2, 2010 at 3:30pm EST at the Fountainbleau Resort for the 2010 NACVA/IBA Annual Consultant’s Conference.  There are worse places to be.  There are about 750 valuation-related consultants of many types agree and are here, as well.  [...]

While traveling from Boston to Memphis yesterday I met a gentleman who was the “vice president, strategic solutions” for a sizable business.  His company had been a $60 million services firm that had just recently been acquired by another services firm that was backed by private equity.  The market value combined entity was perhaps $200 [...]

Not Specific to Industry or Corporate Form

Many business owners think that their industry is different than all other industries in its unique problems and issues. They also tend to think that within their industry, their company is also unique. They are at least partially right.
Buy-sell agreements, however, are used in every industry where different [...]

Buy-Sell Agreement Trigger Events was the name of a recent post.  We introduced an acronym, QFRDD, to discuss certain key trigger events that are commonly addressed in buy-sell agreements.  QFRDD stands for the following events in the lives of companies and their owners:

Q  –  Quits
F   –  is Fired
R  –  Retires
D  –  Dies
D  –  Disability

While it [...]

The Problem, the Culprit(s), and the Solution
Virtually every company with two or more shareholders has a buy-sell agreement which is:

an agreement between a company and its shareholders
common when a business has multiple shareholders, partners, or joint venture participants.
an important business and legal document that is too often overlooked by the owners of [...]

In order to provide reasonable resolutions at unexpected sales or at unexpected buy-sell agreement trigger events, it is necessary to focus on business readiness and how your buy-sell agreement will operate all the time.

A New Beginning
Buy Sell Agreements Online has been redesigned and re-energized with a new tagline that addresses its purpose: “Strengthening Buy-Sell Agreements from Business and Business Valuation Perspectives.”
The goal of this updated site is to help business owners, their attorneys and other advisers develop and/or enhance buy-sell agreements so that they meet this important goal [...]