1. April 2nd, 2020
Is it time for a fire sale of your
company?
When do you start and what do you
2. Agenda
1. Definition
2. Cost Reduction
3. Communication
4. Employment Contracts
5. Investor Relationship
6. Decision Making
7. Expectations
8. Emotions
9. Transparency
10. Legal Considerations
11. Leadership
Giovanni Soleti
Managing Partner
Louis Lehot
Founder
3. Before we start…
Slides and recording will be sent out after the webcast
Use the Q&A function
Contacts: g.soleti@gscap.co and louis.lehot@L2counsel.com
4. Sale of company at a price that is
well below market value (and likely
for less than the preference stack)
Investors are not going to get their
money back
Common is out of the money and
wiped out
1. Definition of
Fire Sale
5. Source: London Business School - The economics of a pandemic: the case of Covid-19 by Paolo Surico and Andrea Galeotti
Reduce Cost as quick as
possible!
Team
Overhead
Expansion
Marketing
Sales Salary
Vendors
2. Cost
Reduction
12. Be transparent and constantly in touch with
your investors. Lack of communication
makes people think you are hiding
something and cutting side-deals. Build
trust!
9. Transparency
13. 10. Legal
Considerations
Entity deal, asset deal, licensing deal?
Who is in the deal, who is out?
Management carve-out plan?
Sign-on bonuses?
Disclose everything!
Skeletons will come out of the closet...
What to do with what remains?
18. Thank you.
Louis Lehot
Founder
P: 650.796.7280
www.l2counsel.com
louis.lehot@l2counsel.com
Giovanni Soleti
Managing Partner
P: 305.924.6100
www.gscap.co
E-mail: g.soleti@gscap.co
For more information:
Hinweis der Redaktion
Story about my personal experience in the 90s.
Rejected offers, because had a ½ billon valuation
Conversion from llc to Inc - increase issued stock. – guaranteed through green shoe
IPO never happened- 1m personal debt – great start into the new millennium
Went from hero to loser. Lost my girlfriend.
Eliminate employees that are not an asset. Engineers and technicians are an asset if you should do an acquihire
Generate revenues through service business - Survive with service business if you were bootstrapped through some service business – keep the people important to service business
Reduce office space.
Do it at once and not a little at a time.
Eliminate any marketing activities. Make sure you can get out of existing contracts.
You are not an established company that needs to get visibility during bad times. You are most likely a small company that didn’t get traction during good times. You won’t get any during bad times.
Stop international expansion
Convert Sales salary into 100% commission based salary
Speak to your investors.
Get trusted outside advisors. – mediator
Make sure on which side the mediator will be. Will he help the entrepreneur or is he more concerned about his relationship with the VCs/ investors? Try to find out
Don’t tell everything to your employees. No one wants to hear bad news.
Insulate the execution team.
Lead the company better than ever - give them confidence. – don’t be cocky and pretend we will be back in church by easter. On the other side don’t walk around like a scared chicken.
Don’t tell clients and partners- words move faster than you think
Have a good understanding what you can do and cannot do with your employees, investors. What happens if there is change of hand? IP at what stage is the registration?
Your counsellor needs to help you. He might come up with some tactics based on your existing contracts
Talk to your investors and other shareholders once you have a clear picture.
Open discussion with existing investors
Work out common strategy and tactics
Make it clear there will be a loss.
Avoid last minute blocks
And most important - Get permission to negotiate on behalf of all investors
Get Nay Sayers on board.
Avoid too many people negotiating. Too many opinions will drag out negotiations
Decide that you are going forward with a fire sale. Don’t be fixated on valuation and terms
Have investors and board support
Check contracts
Speed is of the essence
Create a short-list of potential buyers
Continue to look for other investors on parallel
Find out who is really interested and who is a tire kicker. Find out what their internal decision-making process is? To whom am I talking? Am I talking to an angel or to God?
Don’t try to maximize returns.
Make sure investors don’t try to maximize. Have an agreement of expectations
Preserve reputation with employees and investors
Live to fight another battle.
Some proposals won’t sound fair and you’ll want to explode – this is not going to help. Focus on finalizing a deal - it won’t be the best of your life
Don’t get offended by any offer
Keep your investors at check
The advisor can be the bad cop. Try to be the good cop.
Don’t through anyone under the bus
Avoid bringing home all your office problems
Distract yourself – sport, etc
Every sales agreement has a representations and warranties. Prepare a data room asap.
Speak to your accounts: Get as a many up to date financial statements as possible.Disclose tax situation if any. Information of any kind of debts.Exact burn-rate after the cost reduction
Have an updated cap-table ready. Go through your investment agreements and highlight liquidation preferences, common vs preferred stock, convertible notes, warrants, etc
Check our commercial agreements. Are the any change of hand provisions? Have you given any exclusivity? Signed any NDAs with your clients?
What is your real IP situation? What has been granted and what has been filed. When and have you had any pushbacks? Registration status with regulators?
A very successful entrepreneur once told me, “I learned a lot during good times, but much more during bad times when I had to fire employees, sell assets and shut down my company.” I didn’t understand it at that time, but with experience, this really grew on me.
The first quarter of 2019 saw about $968 billion in announced deals, close to 25% of the $3.9 trillion total for the year, according to Refinitiv. If Q1 of 2020 ends up being roughly 25% of the global volume for the year, the industry is looking at massive declines year over year.
Data from Dealogic published in The Wall Street Journal showed January M&A deal value at about $151 billion. February saw $230 billion in deals. The first two of five fiscal weeks in March saw $131 billion in activity, on pace to surpass February by a wide margin. But the last three fiscal weeks of March saw only a fraction of that activity, contributing just $49 billion to the month, according to Dealogic.
The Journal cited several examples of how COVID-19 is directly affecting deals. Increased difficulty in securing debt financing from banks that are dealing with more pressing immediate concerns, violent swings in the stock market that make valuations difficult and an inability to meet face to face for negotiations were cited as three primary reasons deals have gone south.
If you are a revenue-generating company looking to raise capital or explore a sale or are on the enterprise side looking in, please reach out to me.
Likewise, if you are looking for legal support from one of the most experienced corporate attorneys in Silicon Valley, please reach out to Louis.