The seven stages of a well-run business sale.
Six to eight months, seven stages, one rule throughout: nothing about your identity moves without your approval. Here's what actually happens, stage by stage.
Fit and goals
A 30-minute conversation — WhatsApp, call, or coffee. Your goals, your timeline, a first sense of value. No documents required, no fee, no obligation. If selling now isn't right, we'll say so; some of the best outcomes start with “wait 18 months and fix these two things.”
Know what it's worth — and make it worth more
Three years of financials analysed, EBITDA adjustments identified line by line, a defensible valuation range built against sector multiples. At the same time: quick wins that raise value — cleaning up related-party items, documenting processes, tidying contracts.
The blind teaser and the IM
Two documents: a no-name teaser (sector, revenue band, strengths — nothing identifying) shown to prospective buyers, and a full information memorandum released only after an NDA is signed. You approve both before anything moves.
Finding the right buyers, quietly
Targeted outreach to strategic acquirers, investors and qualified operators. Every respondent is scored on intent, fit and financial capability. Only NDA-signed, capable, shortlisted buyers are introduced — and you approve each introduction personally.
Competing offers to a signed term sheet
Offers are brought to the table together, compared on price and structure, transition terms and certainty of completion. Negotiation runs until one buyer signs a term sheet on terms you're happy with.
Verification, managed
The buyer's accountants and lawyers verify the business through a controlled data room — access granted per buyer, per document, fully logged. Questions are coordinated so the process stays on schedule and your team stays unaware.
Signed, paid, handed over well
Lawyers finalise the sale and purchase agreement; completion mechanics move the money and the shares. Then the part that protects your legacy: a planned handover to staff and customers, on the timing and terms negotiated in stage five.
Process questions, answered
Yes. Until you sign a term sheet with a buyer, you can pause or withdraw — owners sometimes do when circumstances change. Because fees are success-only, stopping costs you nothing beyond the time invested.
Early conversations happen without you — buyers are screened and scored first. You meet only shortlisted, NDA-signed, financially capable buyers, usually two to four of them, with the meetings prepared and accompanied.
A short document — usually two to five pages — recording the agreed price, deal structure, transition period and key conditions before lawyers draft the full sale and purchase agreement. It's mostly non-binding, but it sets the anchor for everything that follows, which is why negotiating it well matters.
The buyer's accountants and lawyers verify what they're buying: financial statements against bank records, tax and CPF compliance, contracts and licences, employment records, and any litigation. Prepared sellers sail through it; unprepared ones lose deals or get re-traded on price. Preparation starts in stage two precisely for this reason.
Usually for a agreed transition period — commonly three to twelve months, sometimes shorter for management-run businesses. It's a negotiated term, not an obligation, and it's often what gets a nervous buyer to full price.
Four causes account for most failed sales: financial records that don't survive due diligence, revenue dipping mid-process because the owner got distracted, price expectations set above what any evidence supports, and slow responses that let momentum die. Every one of them is preventable — which is why preparation, a maintained business and a managed timetable are stages of the process, not suggestions.
Yes. The process is built to run remotely: conversations over WhatsApp and video calls, documents through a controlled data room, and signings that can be done electronically or through your Singapore corporate secretary. Owners who have relocated — or are mid-relocation — sell Singapore businesses this way routinely. Buyer meetings are scheduled around your time zone, and a local advisor being physically present for viewings and negotiations is precisely what you're engaging us for.
Start with one confidential conversation.
Thirty minutes on WhatsApp or a call. No fee, no obligation — and your name stays private until you decide otherwise.