We are in the 11th hour of purchasing a small business. Throughout the due diligence process the seller has been hyper-paranoid about his employees (whom are in their 60s and 70s) catching wind of the sale, so we have had to access the property only after business hours. Even after the Purchase Agreement has been signed he is STILL very squirrely about his employees finding out. (1) is this normal? (2) any obvious red flags?
Note: seller is hands-off and remote. Employees operate the day-to-day.
As other have said. Very normal. It can only add complications to the process, and even more so if everything doesn’t move forward.
Although if you wanted some employee feedback pre-close, the owner can always do a “blind survey” and you can ask some basic questions but you won’t know exactly who said what.
Good luck!