Presenting an LOI without meeting the seller?
May 21, 2020
by a searcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT Sloan School of Management in Los Angeles, CA, USA
Given the travel restrictions, is it advisable to present an LOI without meeting the seller in-person? Several zoom calls and conference calls have occurred.
from New York University in New York, NY, USA
You also have to figure out if you are prepared to *close* a deal without an in-person meeting. That's a fundamentally different question than just signing an LOI, but you should always be upfront with your seller. If you sign an LOI, they will expect to see you working hard to close that deal on those terms in the next###-###-#### days. If you are not prepared to do that, you probably shouldn't sign that LOI.
You also have to figure out how much you can do (QoE, financing sources) without an in-person meeting. As I wrote in this article, some buyers are using a management agreement structure to help bridge these gaps: https://www.icemiller.com/ice-on-fire-insights/publications/conducting-m-a-in-coronavirus-world-management-ag/
from The University of Arizona in Chicago, IL, USA
Ultimately, calling for blind LOI's usually indicates that the sale is being run close to an auction. Ultimately, I want to buy from someone who cares about the continuity of the business, will help transition to my ownership and is invested in it's long-term success.