I am working on a sale and purchase of a business.
The buyer and seller are business partners. The seller wishes to slow down and act as consultant only for a few years and then retire altogether.
They wanted me to act for both parties, but the conflict of interest is too much of a problem, so I am only acting for the buyer.
The buyer came to see me today to say that he needs to buy the shares in the company, rather than buying the business and putting it in a new company.
I convinced him that it would be a lot cleaner to stick with plan A and engage the old company as an agent for:
- collecting direct debit payments for the time being;
- using its existing credit accounts with suppliers,
and other things that will be able to be changed over easily, or at all, because the buyer’s credit rating is shot having gone bankrupt about 10 years ago.