9 Ownership Transition Issues Specific to Contractors

All businesses face challenges with an ownership transition.

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
Share

There are nine interrelated issues that heavily impact contractors. 

Succession: 9 Ownership Transition Issues Specific to Contractors.

We will dive deeper into each of these over the next week:

  1. Strength and alignment of the management team (post-deal)
  1. Culture of the company - Is it prepared for an ownership succession and compatible with the new owner? Seems “soft” but is very “hard” and can destroy value quickly.  
  1. Key relationship continuity with employees, customers, and others.
  1. Financial partner alignment with banking, surety, and possibly insurance.  
  1. Cash generation capabilities.
  1. Asset vs. stock sale - who owns past liabilities, how are they quantified, and what is the tax implication?
  1. Sustainable growth strategy and plan to ensure value is created for all stakeholders.  
  1. Future direction of the construction industry and ensuring you are neither selling nor buying the equivalent of a horseshoe manufacturer and installer in 1900.  
  1. Extremely low barriers to entry for new contractors can easily create competitors out of unaligned stakeholder groups, which often destroys value.  

9 Ownership Transition Issues Specific to Contractors
Continue building value in your business, yourself and your key team members with a good succession strategy....

9 Ownership Transition Issues Specific to Contractors
Continue building value in your business, yourself and your key team members with a good succession strategy....

Roles of Investment Bankers and Business Brokers
Investment bankers can play a critical role, especially if the exit strategy is selling to a strategic buyer or merger with another contractor.
Positioning for the Best Talent
Contractors are in an all out war for talent. The winners will be those contractors that master recruiting, retaining and development at both the craft and leadership levels.
Project Cash Metric and Cash vs. Margin Variance
Contracting is a very capital-intensive business and it is critical to constantly be watching cash flow performance. This metric is the highest level of an “OUTCOME” for cash flow at the project level, summarizing the performance of ops and accounting.