Retirement Sales

Parting with one's baby can be a heart-searching and often painful experience. It is something most owners of family businesses do reluctantly and invariably only once. Retirement comes to people at different ages, dependent on the money involved.

I have had experience of owners cashing in their chips and retiring in their twenties. However, for most it is a factor of old age and the realisation that time is running out to do all those other things one has always wanted to do - before the limbs and mind seize up. I have had many experiences of some owners who can never bring themselves to the acceptance of a sale and on may occasions the business invariably suffers as the owner simply hangs on and on.

I well remember one owner of a well-known engineering company in the Black Country who was a young 97 years old. On arriving at his dusty office, I noticed three men in white coats in the drawing office who all looked rather alike - they would have been in their 70s. On enquiring who they were, the owner advised me that they were his three sons. I enquired further as to why they were not Directors or Shareholders - to which he replied "Early days yet - early days". The business was finally sold to a developer for houses. What a waste of a sound business......