{"id":105,"date":"2024-08-23T16:46:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T16:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/?p=105"},"modified":"2024-09-23T17:13:57","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T17:13:57","slug":"allison-dent-when-do-i-let-my-staff-know-the-business-might-be-changing-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/2024\/08\/23\/allison-dent-when-do-i-let-my-staff-know-the-business-might-be-changing-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Allison Dent: When do I let my staff know the business might be changing hands?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When do I let my staff know the business might be changing hands?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letting executives or key members of your team know that you are preparing to sell the business is always a challenging and risky decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most offers to purchase there is a clause that states that only key resources are to be informed of the process in progress. This kind of clause severely limits that seller\u2019s ability to share the information with anyone who isn\u2019t strictly on the  \u201cneed to know\u201d list.  But as negotiations continue, there is often a point where it becomes impossible and detrimental to not share the possibility of a transaction with your most trusted colleagues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 This generally first occurs  when   there is an offer accepted by the owner(s) and due diligence will require the involvement of these resources or key employees. Their help will be need to put together a large variety of supporting information, answer questions, and possibly, plan for the business integration post transaction.  These key staff may not be privy to the financial details of the transaction, but their support is often crucial in getting the deal to and over the finish line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be important to ensure that those who are involved in the transaction acknowledge that they are bound by the confidentiality clauses of any offer and agree to adhere to it. Even for the most trusted and dedicated collaborators, it is difficult to keep such a possible change in the business to themselves. Having them personally sign off on the privacy clause will support their need to maintain the secrecy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buyers will often ask to have direct access to staff as part of their business valuation and due diligence. This is not always in the best interest of the seller and is something that should be given serious consideration before being accepted.  However, if it is something that must happen, often sellers will simply explain to staff that they are securing additional financing to grow the business and this is why there will be an external group asking questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the transactions nears a close, the buyers and sellers generally come up with a plan to share the good news with the staff jointly. Both the timing and the messaging of this can be tricky.  On the one hand you want to share the good news so your team so they will be excited and not worried by the change of control.  On the other hand, you don\u2019t want a deal to be known weeks in advance in case there is a last minute change in the closing.  One thing that is certain: once the staff knows, the news will quickly spread outside of the confines of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is therefore no one best time to tell your staff, but there are many factors to consider when selecting what is the best option for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When do I let my staff know the business might be changing hands?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[5,3],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advisor-of-entrepreneurs","category-allison-dent","tag-allison-dent","tag-ma","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107,"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions\/107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adcorporatefinance.com\/allison-dent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}