High stakes need expert advice

by Catherine Woods - Wednesday, 26th September 2007 -

Professional advice doesn’t come cheap, but Kate’s Cakes managing director Steve Greenhalgh says the benefits of paying for help do outweigh the costs – in certain situations.

“Sometimes you can get enough advice for free to make a judgment, but in specific instances, such as tax, signing into warranties or covenants, if somebody’s starting out and they’re borrowing money, you absolutely need the right advice.

“What you’re signing into today is going to potentially either pay dividends later or come back to haunt you,” he says.

Last month, Greenhalgh sold Kate’s Cakes, the Sussex-based business he acquired in an MBO in 2000, to Dutch company CSM for £32.5m.

He used three sets of advisers: corporate financiers, lawyers and tax consultants.

“When you’re selling your company, you are in serious legal territory and you have to use people that do this day in and day out,” he says.

“At the end of the day, you’ve also got a business to run. Even with the best will in the world, you can never, ever quantify how much of your time is going to get sucked into something like this.

“I’ve done this a few times now and it is absolutely consuming.”

Still, Greenhalgh insists there’s merit in shopping around for the right adviser and getting some free help while you’re at it.

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