neWings is a consulting firm that supports founders with their exit, among other things. On behalf of the owner, Rogier Gigengack guided the sale of a web application in the social domain. He posted the sales profile on Brookz, which was viewed 417 times and generated 12 responses. Ten months later, the deal was done with the buyer.
What does the sold business do?
Rogier Gigengack: "Sociale Kaart Nederland is a platform to support municipalities and care and welfare institutions in their task of providing good information to citizens within the social domain around housing, care & welfare, work & income and children & youth. It was founded some eighteen years ago with an annual turnover of 250,000 Euros and two FTEs.
Why did the owner want to sell a business?
'Sociale Kaart Nederland was part of a larger group of businesses and the business activities no longer fit with their main activity. Because they felt that in terms of potential, relevance and commitment, this platform deserved to grow further in a continuous way, it was decided to sell it.'
What kind of activities did you do for the owner?
"They knocked on the door asking what we could do for them in terms of exit. Ideally, you have more than a year to prepare the business for sale, but the owner wanted to put a bow on it quickly and put it on display. We did a stand-alone valuation based on the DCF method and then asked ourselves: what might it be worth to a strategic buyer? This is also how we framed the text of the sales profile, to attract the interest of strategic buyers in particular.'
What is your experience with posting a sales profile on Brookz yourself?
'The tool to post a sales profile is very user-friendly. What I especially liked was that a Brookz employee thinks with you about how to present the text in the best possible way and what data and figures you need to mention to provide potential buyers with enough information so that they will respond.'
What is your experience with the number and quality of responses?
"We received twelve responses to the sales profile, which we were very happy with. A majority of them were serious buyers. A few potential buyers were mostly curious, but quickly turned out not to be serious candidates. And that's fine. The great advantage of Brookz is that by posting a sales profile you immediately reach a large network. In the end, together with buyers from our own network, three high-quality strategic buyers remained.'
Who is the final buyer and does it come from outside your network?
"The buyer is an investment company with a focus on software and technology companies, adding it as an add-on to one of their holdings in a total buy-and-build strategy. And that is exactly the buyer we had in mind when valuing the business. This buyer was not immediately in our sights, so without Brookz, we probably wouldn't have gotten in touch with this party.
