What M&A Lawyers Want CEOs to Know About Selling Their Companies

Today's episode is all about the legal issues and considerations involved in selling a small to medium sized business ("SMB"), many of which tend to be unfamiliar to CEOs and Entrepreneurs. 

My guest, Mario Nigro, is one of Canada's preeminent M&A lawyers, and currently serves as a Partner in the Mergers & Acquisitions and Private Equity & Venture Capital Groups at Stikeman Elliot based out of Toronto. From a legal standpoint, Mario has worked with substantially every type of stakeholder within the SMB ecosystem (business owners, CEOs, entrepreneurs, strategic acquirers, private equity firms, banks, non-bank lenders, financial advisors, deal intermediaries, and so on), and regularly acts for both buyers and sellers in both minority and majority SMB sales. 

We cover a lot of ground in our discussion, and focus specifically on the most common blind spots that Entrepreneurs and CEOs tend to exhibit when it comes to selling their companies, including: 

The most common reason why entrepreneurs over-pay in taxes after receiving their deal proceeds;

How to select legal counsel when looking to sell your business, and how much you should expect it to cost;

Whether LOIs should be detailed or generic, and why;

The circumstances under which buyers and sellers would prefer an asset sale or a share sale;

The most frequent mistakes business owners make when negotiating representations & warranties in the purchase agreement;

Why rep & warranty insurance is growing as a useful tool for both buyers and sellers;

How to deal with unsophisticated legal counsel & advisors in a SMB sale;

The top 3 reasons why deals fall apart after a LOI is signed;

How to negotiate your non-compete;

You can access the show notes by clicking on this link 

Please enjoy!