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.
Had this with the last company I worked for. Owners were of retirement age. Only one of the 6 kids worked there. Rumours floating around about potential sale. They bought a floor scrubber for the warehouse when the floor had never been scrubbed ever. Fresh paint, and repaired sheet rock. Money spent when it never had been spent before.
It did sell and they did not tell anyone until the deal was done. And then a bunch of important sales people left. I got out before this.