I talked with a dealer in California this morning who has just acquired six new franchises. He bought them from someone he had known for decades, and Peter Blackstock, who acquired the new franchises, said it was all very easy. “We went out and had lunch [and] it just worked out,” he said. It wasn’t actually that simple, of course. Blackstock went on to say that he and Marty Franich, the seller, went through the details bit by bit before signing the agreement. “We negotiated every single thing,” Blackstock said.
The dealership business is super-complex and so is the buy/sell process. If you work with someone who makes the process simple and easy, you are doing yourself a disservice and likely leaving money on the table. That’s why we advocate working with professionals who are licensed real estate agents. Lawyers and CPAs with lots of experience doing buy/sell deals are also a huge asset.
This week we have columns from two such professionals, both of whom give great advice on some details you don’t want to ignore when buying or selling a dealership. Attorney Erin Tenner discusses how to ensure your asset purchase agreement limits your exposure to the other side’s liabilities. One tip: Don’t be too lazy to attach a list of current fixed assets. Hard to enforce a contract that doesn’t list exactly what was acquired.
Pricing a dealership’s motor vehicle inventory is a very complex part of a buy/sell deal and one with a lot of opportunity to gain hidden value or absorb hidden costs. In this issue, attorney Joe Aboyoun goes through what categories of vehicle should be included in the agreement and how they should be priced. Great info to have at your fingertips.
Naturally we also have Transaction News.
Enjoy!
