[thewizardofaus]

"Once you get an offer, try to generate competing offers from your key relationships"

I've always seen the statement of getting competing offers but how does it actually work in reality?

Is it as simple as contacting the key decision maker from competitor and saying...

"I've got an offer X, what can you do?"

[lhh]

Yes: “Hey, our company is on the market for sale and I thought you might be interested in taking a look before we accept another offer.”

And you can tailor it based on the specifics.

Working with an advisor can sometimes make this easier because they can be more direct and say things like: “Competitor X has made an offer and I know it’d make your life difficult if this asset ended up in their hands, so I wanted to give you an opportunity to take a look first.”

By the way, waiting until you get an offer to start trying to bring in competing ones isn’t great, definitely better to do that as early as you can if you’re serious about selling. You risk pissing off the interested party if you’re making them feel like they’re just being used as leverage and drag things out before giving them an answer.

[hackitup7]

Sometimes, although working with focused M&A bankers is the typical strategy for large transactions

[paulddraper]

Right. This is the entire job of M&A bankers.