Posts by David Phillips

Managing Contracts and Liabilities

Several years ago I worked with a client who was buying a franchised business in the home improvement sector.  The business was marketed as including franchise rights within a multi-state territory.  After a great deal of time and effort by the parties to negotiate terms of agreement, source financing and evaluate financials, we discovered during…

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Addressing Key Employees

Many years ago I represented the owners of a business that was to be sold to a private equity firm.  As should be expected with an experienced buyer, the terms of the transaction were carefully documented in a letter of intent, to be followed by the actual Asset Purchase Agreement and a multitude of various…

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Financial Housecleaning

We all know the drudgery of cleaning something significant to get it ready to sell, whether a business, a house or even a car.  You want whatever you are selling to look its best for possible buyers and, ironically, better than you ever cared to have it looking for yourself.  In many ways, a business…

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Preparing to Leave

                  There are a handful of questions that nearly every buyer asks when first looking at a business, and one of this is:  “What does the owner do?”  They want to know whether they can replace the owner, so clearly one of the most important ownership transition planning steps for a small business owner is…

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