‘ I gave some shares to a key employee years ago and he subsequently left without transferring them back. If it had not been identified and dealt with, this could have led to a substantial claim against me from my sale proceeds’

‘My leasing arrangements with an equipment supplier had terms which changed unfavourably should the shares or ownership of the company change which would mean any purchaser would be worse off and hence insist on a price reduction’. Renegotiation with the supplier before putting the business on the market helped avoid this’

‘ I instructed an agent to sell my business, paid a substantial upfront fee and then discovered that I needed the consent of the other shareholders, even though they only owned 15% of the shares.’

‘ We were approached by someone we already knew to buy our business and shared information for him to assess things. Negotiations failed and he began to share our information with others. We realised too late we should have put a confi dentiality agreement in place’

‘ We started marketing the business through a broker. We soon realised they had not even done a basic credit check on the Company becuase our purchaser raised an issue we were not even aware of. They lost interest in the business as we were not prepared with a an explanation’