"Exiting a business can refer to a variety of situations, such as selling a business to a third party or closing a

business at a loss. Exits can also happen by transferring ownership to a relative or member of your

management team or by distributing ownership in shares to your employees Mergers involve agreements to management team or by distributing ownership in shares to your employees. Mergers involve agreements to

combine your company with another company. Finally, liquidation is selling pieces of your company which

may be worth more than the whole. Business exits aren’t failures. In these unprecedented times, business

owners in many industries have been forced to close due to conditions out of their control."
Lynn Weinstein and Natalie Burclaff, Business Reference Librarians in the Science, Technology, and Business Division

"In the report, UBS points out the majority of business owners don’t have a full understanding of what takes

place in the selling of a business. It identifies a knowledge gap for the 75 percent of owners who believe they

can sell their business in a year or less. This is on top of the 58 percent who have never had their business

formally appraised, and the 48 percent without exit strategies."

Michael Guta, Economy 1, Small Biz Trends

"In reality, however, many owners probably won’t be able to sell their businesses when they’re ready...they’re not taking critical steps toward a transition or toward getting the full value of the enterprise..."

"Recent surveys... show that many owners have little to no exit planning in place, even though many of them have 80 to 90 percent of their financial assets based in the business itself."

Mary Ellen Biery, Forbes