How Do you - Negotiate a Final Business Sale Agreement

When negotiating a deal, ask the seller to bring together all the interested parties so that full attention can be given to the deal and an agreement finalised as soon as possible. Express your interest and your determination to finalise a deal because this is what the seller is looking for. If the seller can see that he/she has an advantage by moving fast, this process would usually be speeded up.

The process of negotiating an agreement involves more than settling on the final price. There will be other issues to be agreed to between the parties, such as the transfer of any contracts, obtaining finance, transfer of staff and staff entitlements, assignment of insurance policies and leases, etc.

The negotiation usually begins with the seller setting out the asking price of the business. This is the final asking price because during the process of investigating the business, things may have changed as the buyer brings up issues that the seller may have backtracked on or amended.

You don’t have to accept the seller’s final asking price first time round because it should be able to be reduced once other matters are brought to light that require a price adjust...