Pre-exit
A pre-exit involves selling a portion of your shares to a private equity firm and then continuing to run the business for a few more years alongside professionals who bring a wealth of expertise to the table. You do this because you want to secure a portion of your company’s value while still seeing significant opportunities in the market. Essentially, what you’re doing with a pre-exit is bringing in both capital and experts who will help you grow your business. This often happens through a “buy and build” strategy. In doing so, you bring on board a partner with extensive experience in scaling businesses. As an entrepreneur, you don’t necessarily have to remain operationally responsible for the company, but you will continue to work on the business.
Less Risk, More Value in Your Personal Life
You’re thinking about your future and succession planning for your business. That’s an important step in the entrepreneurial journey. You want to secure your legacy, arrange for succession, and strengthen the company’s long-term viability. With a pre-exit, you can realize a portion of the value you’ve built up with your business.
With this, you provide a piece of de-risking now and lay the foundation for a follow-up exit at a later time. By ensuring that the business can continue to grow, you take advantage of new opportunities in the market, transfer your business with positive energy and create more exit scenarios.
You can achieve a pre-exit through a partial sale to a strategic buyer—such as an industry peer or competitor—or to a private equity firm. After the sale, you can continue to grow and capitalize on opportunities in partnership with a new strategic partner. Your company can then implement a “buy and build” strategy, which offers the following advantages:
- You grow faster because you add more sales through acquisitions.
- Your customer base is growing. You are likely to have margin expansion as a result, because you can make more sales with the same products and organization.
- A larger organization means less risk and more opportunity for expansion.
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It is a processof ongoing insight
We always advise our clients to look at the different options that best suit their needs. For you too, it is important to explore different options to see what you really want. As a business owner, you often already have an idea of what you want, but a sale is often a process of advancing insight where your preferences could change just like that. So we can never say that a pre-exit is a preconceived plan. It can be an insight that arises during an M&A process. It is precisely this awareness that we believe is important and that forms the basis of your choices.
It leads to better choices."
What do we want to do for you?
Hogenhouck is an entrepreneurial and independent M&A firm, where you as a client always come first. Our mission is to advance entrepreneurs who are building their life's work, both professionally and personally. That is what drives and inspires us. Because at the bottom line, for us, it's not just the numbers that count.
We are entrepreneurs, not bankers. We speak your language and have the right market knowledge in-house. We take as much of the burden off your shoulders as possible so you can focus on your own business and spend as little time as possible on the M&A process—because it’s a very time-consuming endeavor. Together with the buyer and legal counsel, we work out the structure and legal documents and guide you through the due diligence process conducted by the buyer.
What sets us apart is that we understand both sides of the table. After all, we guide both the purchase and sale of businesses. As a result, we bring about deals that work for you, but also for the business owner(s) on the other side, because otherwise no deal will come about either.
Our approach?
A pre-exit involves a partial sale to a strategic investor or private equity party. Our extensive knowledge of the market, sectors and personal contacts ensures that we bring several suitable parties to the table. We are in the middle of the market, are a well-known party that has guided many transactions and know which PE firms and strategists might find your company interesting. But the one who knows the most about the market is you. Therefore - besides our excellent network and knowledge of the sector - it is the strength of our cooperation that ensures a successful process.
An approach that leads to success
We think a lot in the long term. You don't work with us for a quick deal, but to make a good step. 'What is that step and when and how should you go about it?' That approach is why our percentage in closings is very high. We're really there for you. In the process we enter into, we pull together as a team. We complement your knowledge and experience with our knowledge of markets, market players, negotiations and an M&A track record of over 15 years. We guide you through the world behind the numbers you don't know, where everyone wants something from you, and put you in the best possible position in buying, selling and funding.
Why sell a business? What do you want to achieve?
M&A advisor for innovative and successful entrepreneurs.
We would like to get to know you
Let's get acquainted, we're curious about your dot on the horizon.