Articles Posted in Business Transactions

What should you do to get your company documentation ready for a potential merger or acquisition? Consult your lawyer. First, he or she will assist the company in getting its basic corporate minute book updated. Important transactions, such as those involving company stock or stock options, appointment or election of directors and officers, and substantial transactions should all be properly documented. The company’s stock book and capitalization table should be reviewed for accuracy, particularly if there are multiple owners. If the company has gone through equity financings or debt financings, closing binders containing the material documents in each of these transactions will need to be made available.

Second, your lawyer should review existing documentation for legal traps. The minefield that poorly prepared documentation presents is extensive, but a few examples can help illustrate the problem. Companies early on may not be able to afford employees, so they will use independent contractors to help create their basic technology. If the company does not have a signed agreement from the non-employee inventor assigning all rights to the company, the inventor, not the company, owns the technology. If the same company has licensed its technology under a purchase order that provides for a transfer of title, then the company now may not own its own technology because it just transferred to the customer title to its technology. Of course, because it didn’t get an assignment from the inventor in the first place, it may not have been legally able to transfer the technology to the customer, so the company may now be in breach. Situations like this do not typically advance closing dates.

Another legal trap exists in confidentiality terms, common to many contracts. These provisions prevent you from disclosing important information you receive from the other party. Often, this information includes the contract itself. As a result, you’ll need to get permission from the other party to disclose the contract. When you ask the other party to disclose, they will want to know who the recipient will be. At that point, you’ll need to disclose the name of the acquirer, and likely the fact that your company is being sold. The fact that you are being sold may not make the other party to your contract very happy. All of this requires you to make sure you know where you are under confidentiality, and to have a strategy where the disclosure requires delicate handling.

Even in the San Francisco Bay Area, buying a business is like buying a house. You wouldn’t do it without performing due diligence and a good inspection. Unlike a house, however, strengths and challenges in a business lie in its relationships, and not necessarily in its building. For this reason, buyers will spend a significant amount of time in reviewing a company’s documentation before any merger or acquisition.

A buyer reviews documentation for a number of reasons. Many are business-oriented, such as whether the company has good title to its technology, has solid supply and strategic relationships, and has not overextended itself in promises made to customers or employees.

The fastest way for the sale of your company to implode is for you to be unable to deliver a complete record of your company to a buyer. It is typical for a company hoping to sell itself to make available online their corporate documentation promptly after a letter of intent is signed. The longer it takes to make this documentation available, the longer it will take to close the sale. A long sale process is almost never to the seller’s advantage. Worse, not having information readily available creates a perception that the company is disorganized. This will increase the perceived risk to the buyer and will further lengthen the time to close.

Even in the reality-distorted vortex of Silicon Valley, a company’s financial statements are a critical tool in any merger or acquisition. If you are a venture-backed company, or have substantial bank loans requiring annual audits, your company’s financial statements may already be in relatively good shape. If you are an owner-operator, or have otherwise been relying on a tax-oriented approach to your financials, you’ll need to convert your financial statements to the standards commonly used by accountants.

Generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, is the method used by the accounting profession to create financial statements. If you are trying to sell your company, you will need to have GAAP financial statements to be able to attract the best buyers, and to be sure you are getting the best value. Because GAAP is so widely used and, in many cases, mandatory, failing to provide a buyer with GAAP financials will increase the perceived risk with respect to buying your company, thereby lowering the price.

An acquirer will likely require that you submit GAAP financials. As part of your agreement with the acquirer, you will represent that your company’s financials are compliant with GAAP. If you are wrong and the buyer is damaged as a result, the agreement will provide that you will have to compensate the buyer, usually through a reduction of the purchase price.

Because converting to GAAP financials is not an easy process, you need to get started as early as possible. In some businesses, such as those technology start-up companies, the conversion to GAAP could take years rather than months. Complications may arise, particularly in the revenue recognition area, and prior year financials may need to be restated. This could be disastrous if, in the middle of negotiations, adherence to GAAP eliminates the year-over-year profit increases you hoped to show.

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Your company, like many companies in Silicon Valley, may suddenly find itself faced with a market window to sell and provide a liquid return for its owners. If you are an entrepreneur or other business owner, you are always on the lookout to reap the value of your business. Before you start planning the next phase of your life, however, you need to plan carefully how you will sell your company.

A company sale is typically a multi-year process, and the sooner you begin the better off you will be when a deal finally arrives. Although exceptions exist, particularly in the roulette world of high technology start-ups, a good rule of thumb is that it will take you between two to four years to sell an operating company. You should plan to begin the process no later than three years before you plan to close. Preferably you should start when you form the company.

Why so early? If you are an owner-operator, you will need to change your focus from maximizing the amount of cash and other compensation you generate from your company, to improving business valuation. A simple mathematical example drives home the point. Many companies are sold on a multiple based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (often referred to as “EBITDA”). If your business can be sold for five times EBITDA, that extra dollar in compensation will cost you five dollars in sale price.