Understanding the importance of the data room
Before
Had you been selling your business before the age of the Internet, you would have set up a physical data room for due diligence of your business records by the buyers. A data room becomes necessary when there’s a large amount of confidential data that you want to share with your prospective buyers for the process of due diligence. In old times, this would be a closely guarded room with copies of all documents that are requested or desired by your buyers during the process of business sale. Only one party would be allowed to visit the data room for due diligence of records. In case extra copies were needed, they would be provided after keeping a proper record, so that no information fell into unwanted hands.
Now
Setting up a physical data room is time consuming and expensive (take a look at our data room structure sample in our Free Document samples section). At times, the advisors and accountants of the buyer may have to be flown in from another city just to scrutinise the documents in the data room. Thanks to the Internet, these days, companies establish online or “virtual” data rooms that are accessible to all interested buyers through the Internet. A virtual data room is simply a secure website that contains all the required documents from your company. Some of these documents may be highly confidential, so a virtual data room has fool proof security against hackers or unauthorised access. The people who are authorised to access the information are given login IDs and passwords. Also, you can assign different clearance levels to different people, which means that a person can only access the documents that are required for diligence by that person. Restrictions are applied on dissemination of information through copying or printing.
Although a physical data room still becomes necessary in some highly secretive deals and government contracts, the increasing speed, ubiquity and security of the Internet has made it quite economical and convenient to establish a virtual data room. When you are going for a business sale, many bidders may be interested in your offer. If you have more buyers and all of them are asking you for different company documents for carrying out the due diligence of your business standing and claims, it becomes problematic to deal with them separately. Your data is confidential, so providing your documents to the bidders individually will loosen your control on your confidentiality. Moreover, responding to the buyers’ request becomes cumbersome and requires dedicated resources. The process of enquiry and response is also more time consuming. Your buyer may be in a different part of the world and may require access to the documents at odd hours. All these problems can be solved by simply establishing a virtual data room, which your buyers can access 24×7. Providing logins and passwords to each one of your buyers ensures tight control, as you are all the time aware of who is looking at which particular document. The documents that contain sensitive information can be shared only at key moments, with key people.
A data room multiplies the chances of making a bountiful exit from your business, as your potential buyers can find the documents at their convenience. Also, a data room indicates that you are indeed serious about selling your business and want to keep the whole process as transparent as possible. By being more open with your documents and data, you are basically showing your confidence in your business and your respect for the requirements of your buyers. Your data room will be used by the buyer’s acquisition team, who may belong to finance, legal, and other departments. It can be hard to respond to requests from all these quarters if you haven’t thought through and established a virtual data room and in the worst case scenario the deal could collapse with a nervous buyer if you were unable to provide the evidence in a timely manner.
In summary here’s why virtual data rooms are very effective during business sales:
- More buyers become interested in your sale proposal when they know that you will provide them access to all relevant documents through a data room.
- If you have given some time limit for bidding, having a virtual data room can increase the number of bids that you receive, as more people will be able to access your information, which is available 24×7.
- You can have the knowledge about what your bidder(s) is looking at and understand the intentions better.
- The business sale is accelerated as no time is wasted in requesting for and gaining access to the documents.
- A virtual data room provides better control on data and the people accessing that data. You can apply digital rights management and prevent the documents from being downloaded or shared with unauthorised people.
So if you haven’t started getting your data room together now’s the time to do it and to help you, we’ve got just the thing that will make it easier for you and help you understand exactly what you need to do and what costs are involved, Creating the Data Room Pack which also includes a zipped up data room structure to get you started.
Joanna Miller helps business owners navigate their way through the start to finish process of selling a business. Her specialty is helping owners understand how to prepare and make the most of their business sale process to maximise their company’s value. To understand how you can sell your business quickly for the highest sales price, purchase her book, “How To Sell A Business: The #1 guide to maximising your company value and achieving a quick business sale”