A Hispanic Business Experiences Transitions

Business partners

Many Hispanic business owners start their businesses with partners.

I did not do that, but it is a very viable way to go and many times I wish I had, because it’s tough to wear all of the hats in your firm. Still, I have heard horror stories of partnerships gone badly, and since a business partnership is very much like a marriage, divorce can be ugly.

There is no one right or wrong way to start and grow a business, and many of the decisions you make will depend on the circumstances, your access to capital, your network, your market timing, your clientele, the macro economy and aspects of your personal life, too.

After having been let down by so many different potential suitors and as bigger birthdays were approaching, we entertained the notion of a junior staff buy-out over time. I know of cases where that has worked quite well, but in a prolonged recession, this was not a financially viable option for us.

We considered selling off specific assets, but there are definitely times where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, so we didn’t go that route. But we did reach out to several of the firms that we had had positive relationships with in the past.

One of them came back with an offer to buy us out, so we began the process of selling our Hispanic business research firm.

This was not lightly entered into, and this was not always easily fathomed emotionally, but it made sense, we needed to do it, we saw great upside potential for it, and there we went, into negotiations and due diligence madness.

In the next installment we’ll look at legalities, surviving the acquisition experience and lessons from the end game. Legalities of Mergers and Acquisitions

Related articles:

Small Business Growth Through M&A 

Eli Mendoza on Equity and Financing

Moving on Up Through Mergers and Acquisitions

Legalities of Mergers and Acquisitions