A retiring business owner took his company off the market, but a buyer kept delaying and renegotiating terms for personal gain. With retirement looming and no time left, the seller faced liquidation instead of a fair deal. Time pressure destroyed his leverage.
Chapters
Example I shared would be the one that I would want to talk about. The challenge in answering your question is that I wasn't able to help them overcome it, and I think that's kind of the underscore of this tale: is that when we run out of time, we run out of options, and most likely they are going to have a liquidation. My client that is sort of out of time is because he's retiring. He's not interested in selling anymore. We took it off the market. We had a buyer. The buyer was not a business person. He delayed the transaction to his benefit. Then he retraded on not only lease terms, but he retraded on the offer and he just kept dragging it out. I just think his whole process was very unethical. So it wasn't entirely something I could control, right? Which is why I'm hesitating on your question to answer it. That's the situation, is that he— unfortunately, we can't just continue to keep it on the market because my client is definitely looking to retire.