Is that takeover offer too good to be true?

IT’S Friday afternoon and you get a phone call from an unknown number. The caller is ringing on behalf of a third party that wants to buy your company. What’s your first thought?

Perhaps you’d feel a strange cocktail of excitement and fear. The buyer’s price sounds good – excellent, even – but your mind instantly goes to all the messy paperwork and ownership you’ve been meaning to sort out for years but never got around to. That’s where the fear comes in.

Most business owners would also assume that the legwork of selling will be done by them. No one knows the company better, so they should handle the acquisition process, right?