Where to sell a company?

[jazzybee]

I have a company to sell that has a trading loss on its books for last year and a pretty good trading name. I would think that buying the trading loss would be useful for a company that wants to reduce its tax liability, and the name should be worth a bit, so rather than letting the company lay dormant, any ideas on what would be the best place to sell it?

[jazzybee]

ok - the loss is only about £35k - so would be best to tout round the local lawyers/accountants?

[srebbe64]

If you want to sell the Tax loss it has to be to a company in the same, or similar, sector. As such, create a list of all the companies in your sector and give each one of them a call. Make a list of all the goodwill elements of the business (brand name, reputation, customers, skilled staff, etc.) and say you'e inviting offers by the end of, say, October.

[jazzybee]

thanks

[Eric Mc]

It may be difficult to offload the trading loss onto the new owner. There is now a large body of tax regulations blocking the transfer of losses made in one trading entity to a different trading entity.

At the very least, the buyer would probably have to separately notify HM Customs and Excise in advance of the purchase to notify them of their intended use of the losses.