Next Steps Mergers & Acquisitions is a consulting firm that supports entrepreneurs with buying and selling businesses. On behalf of Salesmarketeer, Okkie Boot and Peter Rijsdijk supervised the sale of this business. They posted the sales profile on Brookz, which was viewed 385 times and generated 21 responses. Nine months later, the deal was done with the buyer.
What does the sold business do?
Okkie Boot: "Salesmarketeer is a secondment agency that places business development personnel with IT and tech companies. In doing so, they have a unique position in the market, because the business ensures that these employees generate leads and - much more importantly - also follow them up. This significantly increases the success rate of a lead. This Woerden-based business achieves an annual turnover of approximately 1.5 million euros and employs some 15 FTEs.
Why did the owner want to sell a business?
Peter Rijsdijk: "The owner was over the age limit of 60 and mainly wanted to slow down. Entrepreneurship is hard work and he wanted more time to do other things in his life as well.'
What kind of activities did you do for this entrepreneur?
Boot: "I was on the Advisory Board at Salesmarketeer. At some point, the future prospects of the company and the entrepreneur come up for discussion. Then I roughly indicated what it means to sell a business. The owner thought about it for a while and then we entered the sales process. From the very first conversation to the final closing, together with other advisers such as a lawyer and the accountant, we took care of all aspects of a sales process for the entrepreneur.
What is your experience with posting a sales profile on Brookz yourself?
Boot: "Placing a sales profile on Brookz is very simple. As an acquisition advisor, you draw up an information memorandum and an anonymous profile anyway. Then it is relatively simple to place the anonymous sales profile on Brookz as well, because it asks for the same information.'
What is your experience with the number and quality of responses?
Boot: "We had a total of more than twenty responses to the sales profile, which is quite a lot. Among them were serious and less serious buyers. In the end, two candidates remained: a party that saw the business only as an investment and one that consisted of an informal investor together with a person who could fulfill the CEO role.'
Who is the final buyer and does it come from outside your network?
Rijsdijk: "The owner and his management team had a very good feeling about the informal investor together with the new CEO. This informal investor had sold his own secondment agency in the past and knew the type of business well. We approached a list of businesses we saw as potential buyers in addition to Brookz s candidates, but that didn't yield much. So the potential buyer that came forward through Brookz ended up being it. Next Steps Mergers & Acquisitions placed the sale profile on March 29, 2023, and the share transfer was effected on January 2, 2024. The former owner did retain a minority stake in the business.'
