Getting Ready for the Exit Day
Walnut Creek, CA. May 30, 2012. The Alliance of CEOs Roundtable. Many mid-market CEOs sell their companies for far less than what they hoped because they are unprepared for the “Exit Day.”
CEOs under invest in preparing themselves and their firms for an exit, and in building business acumen for exiting. Because most CEOs are inexperienced with selling a business, and because it usually doesn’t feel urgent, they don’t build skill or knowledge around it and other priorities crowd it out until the event is upon them. When the event is upon us, many seek to turn it over to investment bankers, and while they play a critical part in many exits, there is much that they cannot do, or where their incentives are not perfectly aligned with the seller.
The Alliance held a round table discussion on this issue on May 30, 2012, and Robert Sher opened up the event with some key points on successful exits. We’ve attached survey results and a point of view on this topic by Robert Sher.
Tags: presentations (past)
Robert Sher is founding principal of CEO to CEO, a consulting firm of former chief executives that improves the leadership infrastructure of midsized companies seeking to accelerate their performance. He was chief executive of Bentley Publishing Group from 1984 to 2006 and steered the firm to become a leading player in its industry (decorative art publishing).