It’s been so cold over the past week in many parts of the
country there’s a running GOP joke that for once, liberals kept their hands in
their own pockets.
Putting the climate change debate into the deep freeze
for a moment, now that we’re comfortably into 2014 (at least by the calendar if
not the weather) in just a few more weeks, most of you will be regularly
sacrificing your nights and weekends, pushing out 1040s like snowflakes in Canada.
In the category of “nobody asked me but…” a few columns
back, I more or less suggested a 2014 checklist for your firm to prepare for
the coming year. Shortly thereafter, I received an email from a client in the
Northeast and in between getting his car jump-started and
his water pipes unfrozen, he said he was thinking about hanging up his
calculator in roughly two years and was mulling an upstream merger.
However, with tax season literally around the corner he
didn’t want to begin the often protracted process of courtship in the midst of
his busiest time of the year and asked when he should begin.
I simply said “immediately.”
I explained that even if nothing ultimately happened, he
would at least get the experience of meeting potential suitors to determine if
there’s sufficient fuel to move forward and gain experience on what questions
to ask and what to look for when visiting the practice of a buyer firm.
But often contrary to conventional wisdom, we’ve helped
close a surprising number of mergers just prior to the onset of filing season.
It’s the time when firms usually see every member of the client base, thus helping
usher in a much smoother transition.
I pointed out that a mergee also has the advantage of the
more extensive resources of the buyer firm during the tax rush. He thanked me and
then gave me the third-best answer I could hope for in “let me think about it.”
Will he call back? If he’s serious, probably. Even if
he’s just kicking the tires, I suspect that he will, eventually.
Now if you’ll excuse me I need to take a bite of my coffee.
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