Documenting Material Adverse Changes: Selling a Business in the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant effect on all U.S. businesses, but that doesn’t mean the owners won’t be able to sell.
Thomas Rockwood, Vice President of SBA Lending at Atlantic Capital Bank, outlined for the Georgia Association of Business Brokers what documents business sellers should prepare if they are anticipating selling their business in the near future. Rockwood spoke to a virtual GABB meeting on June 23, 2020.
The pandemic could affect any pending contract because it constitutes a Material Adverse Change (abbreviated MAC), material adverse event (MAE), or material adverse effect (also MAE). In other words, changes triggered by COVID-19 COULD significantly reduce a company’s value because it could impact how the company operates in the future. Many contracts to acquire, invest in, or lend money to a company contain a term that allows the acquirer, investor, or lender to cancel the transaction if a material adverse change occurs and does directly affect SBA Eligibility for a loan.
“A material adverse change can happen to anybody at any time,” Rockwood noted. It’s critical for business owners to document how the event affected their business in order to borrow SBA funds and obtain a favorable purchase price.
When collecting sellers’ financials, SBA lenders will want to see:
- Last 3 years Filed Business Tax Returns
- 2019 FYE Financials to include
- P&L, Balance Sheet, AR & AP Aging Report & Debt Schedule
- 2020 YTD Financials to include
- P&L, Balance Sheet, AR & AP Aging Report & Debt Schedule
“We’re in this place where we have no idea what tomorrow looks like,” Rockwood said. “What are the things we can control?”
A seller can document the impact of the pandemic or other MAE on their business by showing month-by-month P&L comparisons. Did the seller’s business bounce back in June? Another helpful strategy would be identifying sales by customer, showing key customers and how they were affected by the MAE. Sales by product could also be beneficial, Rockwood said.
Preparing a memo of understanding could help a buyer, Rockwood said, because it describes in detail what is going on with a business. For example, if sales go up, but net profits go down, what happened? A memo could explain that labor costs rose and the business had to hire more people to move the product out the door.
If a seller can “bookend the start and end of MAC,” that’s going to help paint a strong picture for a business buyer on what happened to the business, Rockwood said.
Sellers ought to come up with a playbook of operations of how the business has or plans to keep employees safe, so that a potential buyer can walk in and continue running the business smoothly. Although some sellers stay on and advise buyers, sometimes they don’t. That playbook will help a new owner because it “outlines what the seller did, how they handled the situation, and gives some advice to the new buyer.”
“It’s the seller’s company, and they know it better than anybody else could,” Rockwood said. “That will be very beneficial to any buyers who want to buy a business.”
A video recording of the meeting is linked here.
Mr. Rockwood’s presentation is available here.
Preparing to Sell After the Pandemic
Mr. Rockwood has spent more than 16 years working with companies to provide government guaranteed lending solutions. He has a B.S. in Marketing & Business from Central Washington University; and an M.B.A. in Marketing Management, Regis University.In addition to being a GABB member, Mr. Rockwood is an executive board member of the Georgia Lenders Quality Circle (GLQC) and a member of the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders (NAGGL).
The Georgia Association of Business Brokers, the state’s largest and most prominent association of professionals dedicated to the purchase and sale of businesses and franchises, is holding brief weekly meetings online during the pandemic. Business brokers, bankers, business attorneys and other professionals join the weekly calls to ask and answer questions about buying and selling a business during the pandemic.
To join the GABB’s Tuesday meetings, please go to
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/95506520094?pwd=WXdtNjhQVmRSWWdDNk5nV2lHZnNKdz09
Meeting ID: 955 0652 0094
Password: 054703