Ed Weeks moved from handling M&A deals to advising owners on what comes before a sale. He sees owners wrestling with growth capital, acquisitions, partner conflicts, succession planning, and partial liquidity needs. These pre-transaction issues, he says, are the real decision points that determine if and how a company changes hands.
I've changed the way I think about this quite a bit over the last couple of years. I got into M&A because I was looking at buying businesses myself. Then I started working around transactions, buyers and sellers, capital financing, all the stuff that happens when somebody decides a company is changing hands. But the more owners I've talked with, the more interested I've become in what happens before the transaction. Because that's usually where the real decision is. I'm meeting owners where the hell they are. And a lot of them aren't saying, Ed, I want to sell my company. They're saying, I need money to grow. I want to buy another company. My partner and I aren't on the same page anymore. Somebody approached me about buying the business. I'm 62 and I don't want to work like this forever. My kids aren't taking this thing over. I'm 45 and I think I can double this business. I want some money off the table, but I don't want to retire. Those are completely different problems.
