Always Be Closing: How to Resolve Key Seller Pushbacks

Founder friendly, 100% of the time

We’ve been itching to write this article for a long time!

We’ve covered the front-end (fundraising, frugal origination) and the back-end (HoldCo design, CFO playbook). Now, it’s time to address the bottleneck in getting from A to B: getting deals done. 

Serial acquirers are value buyers. The multiples they pay are influenced by a combination of: 

• Investor expectations of consistent 20%+ ROIC

• Opportunity set consisting of decent but not stellar businesses

• Sensible leverage

Unfortunately, many founders aren’t simply ready to part with life’s work for a multiple of EBITDA. 

What can you do to get them over the line?

Turns out, there are a few recurrent themes. We picked our favourite pushbacks and paired them with our best rebuttals. To be clear: we’re not mocking founders. These are legitimate pushbacks. We’re here to help acquirers win the argument. 

Happy negotiation! 

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