20 Steps to Successfully Acquiring Your Own Business 

1. Join The Evans Team
We’ll advise and assist you through the entire process. Help you find an appropriate business. Help you determine your budget for the acquisition. Help you evaluate the business to determine a mutually beneficial offer. Help you negotiate the final price and terms. Help you with all the legal and tax documentation.

2. Disclosure and Confidentiality
We’ll prepare, and buyer and seller will approve, documents outlining the disclosure of information necessary to reach an agreement, and documents setting the terms for maintaining the confidentiality of information share in that process.

3. Share Background Information
Buyer and seller will provide us with background information, like r?sum? and financial statement. The more we know about you the more likely it is that we can successfully match the buyer’s needs with the seller’s. The more we know about those needs and priorities the more likely it is that we can help you fashion an offer of price and terms that fit each party’s objectives. We will never disclose any of your information to anyone without your express consent, and usually not until the process has moved far enough toward completion as to make a meeting of buyer and seller productive.

4. Review
The Evans Team will review with you all the businesses you are interested in and discuss with you the important factors – the strengths and weaknesses – of each. That review will consider not only “objective” factors like offering price and recent successful sales of similar businesses, but we’ll also discuss with you how a particular business or offer fits your personal objectives.

 5. Showing
A member of The Evans Team will accompany you for a confidential visit to each of the businesses you’re considering. We’ll meet after our visit(s) to discuss what we saw, how it matched our expectations, and whether we want to continue to move toward an acquisition.

6. Prospective Buyer and Seller Meet

We’ll arrange a meeting (unless you prefer to keep your identity confidential at this point) between buyer, seller, and The Evans Team so that all outstanding questions can be asked and clarified and the business and the qualifications of the owner.

7. Offer to Purchase
We’ll help you prepare an offer to purchase the business you’d like to own. The offer will meet all legal requirements for a legal document, which it is. It is usually the case that an offer to purchase will be accompanied by an “earnest money” deposit, which establishes to the seller the seriousness of the buyer’s interest. Offers to purchase are usually contingent on you doing “due diligence” by inspecting the business’ financial records, recent tax returns, leases, and making a detailed physical inspection of the premises. The offer to purchase is not binding on the buyer until all specified contingencies you’ve included in your offer have been met or removed. The escrow funds (your earnest money) are held by The Evans Team and are 100% refundable if any of your contingencies are not satisfied by the seller.

8. Present the Offer
Your Evans Team representative will make a formal presentation of the offer to the seller.

9. Background on the Prospective Buyer is Presented to the Seller
In addition to delivering the written offer to purchase to the seller, The Evans Team will give to the seller your background and financial information, your experience in business management, and how you came to arrive at the offer price and terms.

10. Explanation

We carefully explain all the terms and conditions of the offer to the seller, as well as to the buyer, and to any family members or advisors requested by buyer or seller to receive a detailed briefing on the offer.

11. Acceptance or Counter Offer by the Seller

The seller accepts the offer as it is written, rejects it outright, or counters with a written offer to sell of their own. This is typically done within three days of the buyer presenting his/her offer to purchase.

12. Mutual Acceptance of Final Terms to Buy & Sell
When the buyer and seller have agreed to all terms and conditions of the offer to purchase, the offer becomes a Purchase and Sale Agreement, i.e., the firm written basis for an agreement.

13. Inspection of Seller’s Documentation
The Evans Team will arrange a meeting between buyer and seller to examine the financial and tax records of the business being sold. You investigate a company in Thailand by obtaining documents from the Commercial Registration Department of the Ministry of Commerce; The Memorandum of Association; The Directors’ Certificate; Binding Signatory Power’ Balance Sheet; and List of Stockholders. The Evans Team will assure that all those documents are present for the buyer’s inspection.  If the buyer has retained outside legal counsel or financial advice, we strongly recommend that they advise you on all the documents they want you to review, in advance of the meeting.

14. Lease Assignment
The Evans Team will work with the landlord (in the case of a leasehold business) to prepare an assignment of the current lease or a new lease satisfactory to the Buyer.

15. Contingency Removal
Upon full agreement that all terms and conditions have been met, you sign a document to the effect that all contingencies in the Offer to Purchase have been met. At this point the Offer becomes a contract, binding on both buyer and seller, for Purchase and Sale.

16. Open Escrow
The Evans Team will provide all necessary documents to the transferring (escrow) agent so they can prepare the closing papers.

17. Lien Search
The Escrow Attorney will perform a lien search on the business to identify any secured creditors.

18. Note and Lease Assumptions
The Evans Team will make arrangements to assign any notes or equipment leases agreed to under the Offer to Purchase and Sell.

19. Inventory?
The Evans Team will make arrangements for Buyer and Seller to count and price any required inventory.

20. Closing
The Evans Team and the escrow agent will arrange for all parties to meet to execute the final closing documents. The business has now been bought and sold.