List of 12 questions every investor will ask you
Selling a company is not ordinary trading. An investor is not looking for emotions or stories about how hard you built the plant over the last 8 years. He is looking for profit, security, and hard data from the floor that will confirm your business will earn money without you.
Financial results without makeup
An investor will start by asking about the real EBITDA from the last 3 years. He is not interested in your predictions for next year if they are not supported by signed contracts. At Silesia Capital Advisors, we have already seen 38 cases where owners tried to hide a 6% drop in margin through creative accounting. This does not work. A professional auditor will catch such things within 3 hours of analyzing JPK files.
Prepare a summary of energy, raw material, and wage costs. If labor costs in your Katowice plant rose by 14% in the last quarter, you must explain how this affected the final price of the product. The investor will appreciate honesty. Facts on the table build trust faster than any assurances about the company's great condition. Show him that you control every zloty in the budget.
An investor doesn't buy your history. He buys the future cash flows your company will generate without your involvement.
Crew structure and rotation
People are the greatest capital, but also the greatest risk. The buyer will ask about how many people from your 83-person crew have key permissions for production. If you only have one welder with a certificate for a specific method, you have a problem. The investor wants to know if after a change of owner, employees will not flee to the competition next door. An average job tenure of 7 years is a signal of stability for him.
We check every zloty spent on the payroll fund. The investor will ask about bonus systems and whether they are linked to results. If you give discretionary bonuses 'because you feel like it', it is an unpredictable cost for the new owner. You must have clear rules. Show him an organizational structure where everyone knows what to do. This raises the value of the company by at least 11%.
Legal and environmental status
In Silesia, land issues can be complicated. The investor will ask about water-law permits, environmental decisions, and possible soil contamination. If your hall stands on the site of a former mine, you must have current geodetic studies. The lack of one document can block a transaction for 4 months. Honestly, it's better to spend 3800 zlotys on an audit now than to lose the deposit from the fund later.
Pay attention to contracts with utility providers and leases. Do you have a pre-emptive right to the next plot if you want to expand the plant? Such details build growth potential. The investor will also ask about ISO certificates and their validity. If the audit expired 2 months ago, it's a signal that there is a mess in the company. Without unnecessary adjectives — either you have order in the papers, or the price goes down.
One missing signature in environmental documentation can cost you 14% of the value of the entire transaction.
Who buys your product?
The investor will examine your client list. If you issue 41% of your invoices to one entity, then your company is a hostage of that client. The buyer will ask about the history of relationships with key recipients. Do you have long-term contracts signed with them, or does everything rely on 'word of honor'? In industrial business, word of honor has no value in an Excel sheet.
Show how you acquire new orders. If the only salesman in the company is you, after selling the business, sales may drop to zero. You must have a system. The investor wants to see a process that works repeatably. Show him the sales funnel from the last six months. If you have 14 real inquiries there, it is a concrete argument for negotiating a higher price.
