This document provides a practical guide for selling one's company. It discusses framing the process around key questions of "Who" and "Why" rather than just "How". For "Who", it categorizes potential acquirers as high-frequency acquirers (A), low-frequency acquirers (B), or potential consolidation areas (C). For "Why", it recommends understanding the acquisition from the buyer's perspective in terms of benefits, differentiators, and their sustainable competitive advantages in order to have constructive dialogues. It provides examples of such dialogues and advises business owners to follow category A, B, and C companies in their industry and prepare for next steps.

1. Selling Your Company - A Practical
Guide
Fredrik Döberl
fdo@Ablona.se
16Q4

2. CONFIDENTIAL
Ablona
Practical guide - Key Questions
Summary
Topics

3. CONFIDENTIAL
Ablona
Founded in 2004
4 persons
Focus on SME
”knowledge intensive”

4. CONFIDENTIAL
Selling Your Company – mental model
Typically, ”Hans und
Gretzel” logic
– That is, follow the path of
some earlier traveler
– Low resolution & static
map
Instead, ”UAV” logic
– Have an overview of your
specific landscape
– High resolution & dynamic
map

5. CONFIDENTIAL
Text mining of
”read more” text of
Amazon ”Sell your
company” books.
They focus on
– Price, value, dollars
– Finding buyers in
the context of the
transaction
– Process
The overall
narrative is on
”How”
Typical – Popular books on “selling your company”

6. CONFIDENTIAL
Market characterized by
”matching” ->
– ”How” is important but not sufficient
Nobel price winner 2012 – Alvin
Roth
– Popular version in the book “Who Gets
What and Why”
– “…Sellers and buyers choose each
other and price isn’t the only
factor..”
– Roths contribution on “algorithms”
based on ranking (i.e. information on
multivariable benefits of a potential
match)
Different with few, dissimilar buyers and reasons to
buy

7. CONFIDENTIAL
Who
Why
Ideal case: Start the mapping long before the sales starts
– THEN When, How, Where
Key questions for the Practical Guide: Who & Why

8. CONFIDENTIAL
Acquisition capabilities are unevenly
distributed
Who – some observations on acquisitions in Sweden.
353 acquiring
companies
581 transactions
(based on Ablonas
automatic data collection,
see
http://www.ablona.se/abl
onamad )
Total population of >50
MSEK companies,
ca 19 000.

9. CONFIDENTIAL
A. High frequency acquirers.
– High probability of acquisition events, high probability of being a
complementary acqusition. Low integration risk.
B. Low frequency acquirers.
– Low probability of acquisition events, high probability of being a
strategic acqusition. High integration risk.
C. Potential consolidation area
– Very low probability of acqusition events. Analyze the business case
for being the acquirer.
Who – three categories
A B C

10. CONFIDENTIAL
Understand the acquisition from the buyer’s perspective
– Build, Borrow vs Buy decisions -> look for building ”Sustainable
Competitive Advantage”. For example, controlling a distribution
channel
Tool: A map (”business canvas”) of potential buyers help to
understand their context
Why

11. CONFIDENTIAL
Constructive dialogue patterns Benefits X
Differentiators
– Benefits in terms of Ansoff Matrix (New, Existing offerings vs
customers)
– Differentiators in terms of ”Build, Borrow, Buy”
Why –dialogues between buyer and seller create
the opportunities

12. CONFIDENTIAL
Some examples
– ”better service to customer if you buy us. Faster and less risky than
building this capability yourself and a partnership would not help you
with…”
– ”yes, to keep your existing customers, you can can create mobile
clients with our. But if you also own us, you can control the business
model and the future development”
– ”We see that the industy’s purchase behaviour is changing, they want
integrated solutions. If you buy us and we combine our solution with
yours. It will be much better than the competitors and together we can
develop new features faster than them.
Why – Examples of dialogues

13. CONFIDENTIAL
Who
– In your industry, who is acquiring/not acquring?
– Category A, B, C for your industry?
Why
– What are the sustainable competitive advantages for these
companies in A, B, C?
– Potential contribution to those?
Use your marketing capability to follow these
companies.
– CRM systems
– Marketing intelligence
What can I do on Monday next week to prepare my
company? Think ”UAV”
A B C

14. Increase business owners’ value
Ablona AB, Stureplan 2, SE-114 18 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone +46 (0)8 661 76 80 E-mail info@ablona.se
Org.no 55 66 51 – 15 14