Tools

Exit Readiness Scorecard

The Exit Readiness Scorecard is a ten-question self-assessment for owners weighing a sale. It scores the five things a sale process tests first: the financial record, how much of the business runs through you, customer and contract exposure, where your value expectation comes from, and the corporate record. The honest result is sometimes not yet.

Questions

Common questions

What is the Exit Readiness Scorecard?

A ten-question self-assessment for owners weighing a sale. It scores five areas a sale process tests first, the financial record, the dependence on you, customer and contract exposure, where your value expectation comes from, and the corporate record, and returns one of five bands from Go to market down to Preparation, not a process.

Who is it for?

Owners of privately held companies weighing a full sale, a majority recapitalization with rollover, or a divestiture of a division, and sponsors weighing an exit from a portfolio company. It is written for the person who would sign, not for an adviser.

How long does it take, and do I need to look anything up?

About ten minutes, and no. Ten scored questions plus two context questions on timing and which outcome you are weighing. Every question is answerable from memory: none of them ask for a figure you would have to pull from a file or a call to your finance lead.

What happens if the result says not yet?

Then that is the result, and it is the one this scorecard exists to give honestly. A sale process opened before the company can survive testing loses value in the same places every time, and most of those places sit after the point where you can still shop the deal. Not yet means the work comes first, in a stated order, and the sale decision comes after it.

How is this different from the Exit Readiness Assessment?

This is self-serve and answered from memory in ten minutes. The Exit Readiness Assessment is a fixed-scope, fixed-fee engagement that examines the record itself and produces a written memo: what a buyer will test, what will survive it, what will not, an indicative value range with the assumptions exposed, and the work required before going to market. Stage one stands alone, so appointing us to run the transaction is a separate decision taken afterwards.

Is anything I enter here confidential?

Yes. Your answers are not shared, and Crescent Capital Advisors will not contact a buyer, investor, employee, customer, lender or any other third party about your business without your written instruction.