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For years, nothing happens. The company runs, the partners agree, the documents sit in a drawer nobody opens. Then one thing happens. A shareholder wants out. Somebody becomes ill. A customer makes a claim. An offer arrives with a deadline attached. And suddenly fifteen years of work depend entirely on agreements that were written quickly, or never written at all. Governance is one of six areas that decide what a company is worth. It is the only one of the six that does not c

Most owners find out what their company is worth at the worst possible moment. A buyer sends an indication. A bank asks for a valuation before extending the facility. A co-shareholder wants out and needs a number. Suddenly the number exists, and it is rarely the number the owner had in his head. The gap between those two numbers is almost never a matter of opinion. It is the accumulated result of decisions taken over ten or fifteen years. Most of them were sensible at the tim