Why the right buyer is not always the most obvious buyer

It is tempting to treat a sale process as a single question: who will pay the most? In practice, the right buyer is defined by more than the number on the first offer.

Fit with the business

A buyer who understands the sector, the customer base and the operating model is more likely to complete on the terms first discussed — and more likely to look after the people and relationships an owner cares about after completion.

Funding and certainty

An attractive headline price is only as good as the buyer's ability to fund it and move at pace. Understanding how a buyer intends to finance a transaction, and how firm that funding is, is part of qualifying interest properly rather than simply collecting it.

Follow-through

Deals can stall or unwind between an agreed offer and completion. A buyer's track record of seeing transactions through — not just making approaches — is a meaningful, if less visible, part of the assessment.

The role of targeted reach

This is why indiscriminate circulation of an opportunity rarely serves an owner well. Identifying a smaller number of genuinely suitable buyers, and engaging them properly, tends to produce a more reliable outcome than casting the widest possible net.

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