Selling A Business - How Do I Transfer Ownership

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BobbyFowler

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I'm selling up my company before emigrating. I've had a few enquiries. Is the actual handover a straigtforward transaction? I've no assets or liabilities (like to keep it simple ;)) - the real worth is in the contracts I have in place. Shares are owned by myself & my fiancee. Do I just get a solicitor to sign over the company in it's entirety to the other party? With all the paperwork involved in running a company, I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that. Reason for asking is that I've had meetings where people have asked me how I'd complete the process. I'd like to have some form of an answer if the need arises again.
 
There are two main ways to approach this:

1. The company can sell the business, which in this case consists of the goodwill and the rights and obligations under the contracts BUT they will have to be assignable, which may depend on the terms of the contracts

2. You can sell the company. Simpler from your perspective, more complex from a buyer's perspective.


Unless you are talking very small money (less than €15k) you really cannot manage without professional advice. I have seen some very small transactions where the parties just handed over share transfer forms and the buyer took over the company with minimal paperwork, but it is not something I would recomment.

I doubt if any competent solicitor would deal with a share purchase agreement for less than circa 2.5k plus VAT and it could very easily run to 10k plus VAT.
 
Thanks for that MOB
When you say you wouldn't recommend simply transfering the shares, I presume you mean from the buyers point of view than the sellers?
I've got it on the market for 100K & have 2 interested parties. Depending on any offer, I could live with 2.5K professional fees but 10K seems pretty steep. I suppose the more detailed the buyer wants to be, the more time I'd have to employ a solicitor for.
 
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