Preparing a Business to be Acquired
The difference between being for sale and being acquirable
50% of business owners are dissatisfied with the sale of their business
Most business owners hoping to sell their business experience either a disappointing sale price, a complete transaction failure, or a post-close integration that erodes trust and value.
Prepare your business to avoid disappointment
A Sale-Ready business is less risky to operate and more valuable to own
Sale Readiness is the difference between being “for sale” and being truly acquirable
Intista helps business owners offer a compelling set of reasons why there will be a fast ROI on acquiring their business. Sell Side preparation will help acquisition targets tell their story, withstand buyer diligence, integrate cleanly into an acquirer’s platform business, and deliver on the value story behind the deal.
What Sell Side Preparation Involves
Readiness Assessment
We assess the business the way an acquirer will consider a business for sale; how will the business appear through an acquirer's lens. We look at operational maturity and repeatability, financial transparency, role clarity and management depth, dependency on key individuals, and how decisions get made.
Plan Adjustments and Improvements
Prepare to document core business operations, cross-functional handoffs, performance metrics, and risk controls, which builds buyer confidence. We also cover technology and data readiness: system scalability, data quality and accessibility, and reporting reliability focused on practical readiness, not digital overreach.
Creating Change within your business: Operations that can be understood and transferred; leadership succession that can operate with discipline and transparency; technology and processes that support scale, not dependency; a culture that can survive ownership change, and clear governance and decision-making structure.
Start preparing, before the Market forces you
Whether your buyer is private equity, a strategic acquirer, or a family office, Intista ensures your company is prepared for the realities that follow the Letter of Intent (LOI).
Intista helps owners exit with confidence, knowing their business is ready to be acquired, integrated, and successful beyond the sale.
The best exits are planned, not rushed by circumstance. If you intend to sell in the next 12 to 36 months, now is the time to prepare the business, not just the deal
Who is this for?
Business owners who want to make their business attractive to potential buyers, and those with an Earn Out clause that is dependent upon post-deal ROI and performance.
Preparing for Post-Sale from the Sell Side
Everyone brings something to the table
When a company is acquired, the purchaser sets up and runs the integration. They create the Integration Management Office (IMO), identify the objectives, select the workstreams, outline the projects within each workstream, and run those projects.
People in the acquired business often assume that their new partner has a well-defined set of integration processes. This isn’t always the case, which is a major contributor to the 70% failure rate of M&A. The acquired business has a lot to offer an integration, and it is in everybody’s interests that they are involved.
If your business sale includes an Earn Out, you should be vested in the integration success. Since only 30% of acquisitions are successful, you need to know the people and processes that will affect the outcomes positively and negatively.
The people who know the most about the acquired business are those who were in that business before the deal. They have a lot of insights and knowledge that can specifically help with the integration.
Here are four reasons to include the acquired staff in the integration projects:
- People in an acquired business are often preoccupied with career concerns because of a lack of communication which affects productivity. When the acquired employees are involved in the integration, their access to information helps keep them and their teams engaged at work
- Acquirers have to make a lot of assumptions around project scope and scheduling. The acquired staff, particularly the acquired management, can provide accurate, relevant information, to help with planning
- Integrations are fraught with unknowns (expect the unexpected). The acquired staff understand how their business works and have the business relationships already in place. They can remove obstacles and solve problems more easily
- Integrating two business cultures is a long journey, especially if it is started on the wrong footing. Including the acquired staff in the integration team after announcement will foster mutual understanding, facilitating the cultural integration
Politically, it is important that some level of the acquired management is involved in the integration, whether they come from leadership or middle management. The acquired business needs to have a raised profile, so that their integration remains in the forefront of everyone’s minds. Without this visibility, the people within the acquired business can struggle for recognition, which will negatively affect achieving the objectives derived from the reasons for acquiring.
How to prepare for an integration when you sell your business
Before leadership sells a business, they should ask a few key questions to ensure that they are included in the integration and to let the acquirer know that the integration is important to them.
- How many people from my management team will be involved in the integration?
- Who are the key staff you need to work with?
- We expect your leadership to be at our office for the announcement, but can we schedule their second and third visits now, before their calendar is filled?
Getting clear answers to these specific questions will be an indication of how well prepared your acquirers are for the integration, and how involved your team will be. The more involved the acquired business is in their integration, the greater the odds of success.