Baby Boomers or Bust?

The extent of insufficient retirement funding and poor exit/succession planning appears to have been laid bare over the past few months, with a number of studies pouring cold water on broader expectations for the retirement plans of the Baby Boomer generation. ...

Why Businesses Fail to Sell

Conventional wisdom tells us that we learn more from our failures than from our successes. With this in mind, a review of failed transactions of recent years has allowed me to compile a fairly rigorous list of pitfalls that derailed business sales, so that I may...

The 80/20 Rule in Business Exits

Having read through the many and varied surveys and research reports conducted in Australia, the USA, the UK and Canada that relate to business sale/succession intentions, preparation and readiness, a familiar pattern in the statistics has emerged.  Yes, the Pareto...

The Three ‘Fs’ of Acquisitions

Business acquisitions can be complex at the best of times, so it is always useful to be able to distil key principles into simple, memorable sound bites.  Whilst I can lay claim to some pearls of wisdom, most I pick up during my day-to-day interactions with M&A...

PPSA and M&A Transactions

Most owners of Australian businesses should be aware of the introduction of a significant piece of legislation earlier this year: the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth), now more commonly referred to as PPS.  For those not in the know, and even those that are...