As you begin thinking about or engaging in the process of selling a non emergency medical transportation business, it is important to meticulously organize the information that will influence the sale process. When sale information is poorly organized and difficult to access, it becomes a direct reflection of your business. Some buyers will lose interest early on if this is the case. If your information is well organized and readily available, you will position yourself to have the greatest opportunities when it is time to sell.
Below is a list of items to help get you started.
Facility Lease
Round it up and reread your facility lease agreement. You will want to be very familiar with the remaining term, subleasing options, transferability, potential penalties for breaking lease, etc.
Vehicle leases and early payment penalties.
Collect each of your vehicle lease agreements. Make sure you understand the cost of early payment penalties. Also, determine what options you have for a buyer assuming your leases or having your leases reassigned to another buyer. There is a difference.
Vehicle payoffs
Get a handle on the equity you have in your equipment based on a conservative estimated value of each of your vehicles.
Customer contracts
If your non emergency medical transportation business has annual or multiple year contracts with your customers, it is important for a buyer to clearly understand what is required to keep that contract moving forward. Example: Specific number or type of vehicles required in your fleet. At the appropriate time, if the account is significant enough, a buyer will need to understand what he is getting into when taking on that piece of business. And if you are representing that you have a five year contract in place with a customer, at some point you will need to verify it.
Certificate of Good Standing
Make sure you are in good standing of course. Then make sure you have a current certificate of good standing. When it is readily available to present to a buyer, it makes the buyer comfortable about moving forward with the sale.
Income Statements and Balance Sheets
These are critical for a buyer to evaluate the financial performance of the business.
Tax Returns
Just make sure you have at least 3 years completed tax returns readily available. Don’t worry if you are still completing the current year’s tax return. Don’t make that an excuse to delay a sale, because the buyer can work with current income statements while your accountant is wrapping up the most recent tax return.
Operations Manuals
Make sure your operations manual contains the most recently added processes and work flows. Also make sure that the look and image manual is consistent with your current brand/logo.
Non Compete and Non Solicitation Agreements
If you have required your employees to sign non-competes or non solicitation agreements, make sure you have them organized in the same place. Buyers are concerned about employees becoming future competitors.
Employment Agreements
Make sure they are current and reflect any recent compensation or benefits changes.
Advertising Contracts
Buyers want to know what it cost to make your business. A snapshot of monthly advertising commitments and remaining obligations to those commitments are very helpful to buyers and also demonstrate you are on top of your business’ expenses.
Technology and Other Vendor Agreements
A summary of your vendor relationships, how you pay them, and the services they provide is also helpful.
Pending lawsuits
If your business has a pending lawsuit, get the facts surrounding the case and the parties involved readily available. Of course, you will only share this information with a serious buyer. However, you will not want to spring this information on a serious buyer late in the game.
Of course, this does not encapsulate all the information that may be exchanged in your business sale. Your deliberate effort to organize this information in advance of a sale will cut months off the process and will likely influence how a buyer values your business.
Leave a Reply