I have a deal where the owners will be retiring in the next 5 years, but they would like to stay on and manage the company. They are just looking to take out some equity (I would buy 80% of the company) to pay off their 7a, which includes real estate (which I would not be buying).
Is there a creative way to get around the SBA rules that:
1. You have to buy 1o0 percent of the company
2. The owners have to leave after 1 year max
A couple of thoughts:
I could implement a phantom stock program or profit sharing to allow them to participate in the potential equity gains.
There are actually two companies here that operate as one. So I could buy one, then merge the other together with it? As in, value the one company at 80% of the total, I buy 100% of that, then merge the two together so they now have 20% of the whole, and become owners in the new org?
Is there a way to keep existing owners on with a 7a loan?
by a searcher from Brigham Young University
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Besides Bruce's cautions, I would add that sometimes the rules are there for your benefit as well. I would say that for every 50 new operators I've talked to, perhaps 1 has kept the owner onboard for any length of time after the sale and been happy with it. Generally, the seller has been retained in a specific role -- for instance -- if they really hated the day-to-day operations but loved biz dev. For a few out of the 50, the seller was pretty much checked out as soon as the deal closed -- which is probably too short. Of the remainder, the operators were pretty happy for the seller to be out of the picture by the time the seller left.