Sell Your Company in 150 Days – Part 8: Managing Due Diligence & Legal

Stage 8: ECP Manages Due Diligence & Legal Process

ECP Ventures offers a disciplined, diligent, structured 10 Stage 150 Day sales transaction process for business owners to sell their businesses with sell side M&A representation.

This is typically a problematic stage for many but it is one of the easiest stages for our clients. The deal has been structured, agreed to, and very well documented with the Letter of Intent (LOI). While the LOI is non-binding it has been agreed to in principle and all parties are fully informed and positioned to move forward effectively.

30 Days, Not 60

Most buyers request 60 days for due diligence. Since the deal has been advanced so far at this stage, we only grant 30 days for due diligence. The buyers have already been provided with all of the buy side information that they have requested. Additionally, we will respond very quickly and completely to all buyer diligence requests.

We take an open books and records full transparency approach to due diligence. There are no secrets and there are no surprises. Our goal is to answer most questions before they are asked. Our buyers highly appreciate our candor and our level of responsiveness and detail.

We respect our buyers and have every intention of putting them in a fully informed position so that they are very comfortable proceeding with the transaction.

Concurrent Processes

At the start of this stage, we engage the attorneys for both parties and commence the document drafting process. There is no reason that due diligence and document drafting cannot run concurrently. This is not only efficient and expedient but it also creates a very cooperative interactive process. As this process develops, we schedule weekly cadence calls to align and maintain tasking and time expectations.

Our firm manages a timeline task schedule that includes all participants from the buyer's team and the seller's team. Mutually agreed upon deadlines for tasks are established and there is a very firm expectation that all deadlines will be adhered to. This is absolutely essential due to the level of codependency of all of the participants and interrelated processes.

The Final Push

We evaluate very carefully to ensure that no single participant is overloaded or dealing with deal fatigue. We strive for a very cordial cooperative atmosphere to work jointly towards a mutually beneficial and timely closing.

The last 14 days before closing we make ourselves available at all times to ensure that there are absolutely no delays or interruptions. We already know that there will not be any surprises.

It is amazing how easy and cooperative this process can be when there is clear direction and a prevailing cooperative spirit.

We are a 100% successful efforts firm so all services described above are performed with zero cost and zero risks to our clients.