On January 25th INSME Academy hosted a webinar called, “Facilitating SMEs business transfers : experiences from Reempresa”. Through this webinar, they showcased a Marketplace for SMEs, where business owners who are retiring could sell their business to buyers who want to enter into the market with a business already in place.
Reempresa is a business transfer marketplace for SMEs based in Catalonia and it was created to help them during the severe financial crisis that occurred in 2010. The goal of Reempresa is to create a network between owners and new entrepreneurs and facilitate the transfers.
In the first part of the webinar, Carla presented the results Reempresa achieved. It involved more than 3,800 companies. This brings the worth of all the deals to 185 million euros. 90% of transfers are related to three sectors; Retail, Hotel and Catering Industry and Services.
In the second part of the presentation she talked about the characteristics of Reempresa. The main target of Reempresa is SMEs but they closely work with microenterprises as well. Speaking of sellers and buyers characteristics, Reempresa services attract more men than women. The majority of sellers are more than 60 years old because of retirement reasons. While buyers are around 40 to 50 years old as they have more capital to invest. The lack of generational relief directly influences the reasons why Reempresa activities are increasing day by day. Carla Jambrina Pla, coordinator of the Centre de Reempresa de Catalunya, underlined the relevance of business transfers due to retirements. Indeed, the latter guarantees the good health of the companies for those who want to take over an enterprise. However, in these cases, Reempresa always suggests to the seller to guide and assist the buyer for a few years as a way to safeguard the stability of the productivity process.
The project is funded by public finance resources thus Reempresa services are entirely free for users. Therefore public regional and European institutions play a crucial role in this project. This has allowed Reempresa to spread their services across all the Catalonia Region.
Reempresa offers guidance for both parties as to facilitate and speed up the transfer. Its staff takes care of the entire process prior to the acquisition of companies, from the very beginning of negotiation to the reach of the final agreement. For example, helping the seller to define what is the best price for his company or supporting the buyer to find the best company to acquire.
Users are supported in virtual spaces. Thanks to the useful marketplace, they can easily find all the business profiles available. The platform has been defined as “users friendly”. Everyone can access it and use filters to find their company’s best solution. Moreover, the project works on a long term perspective, offering training on acquisition practices as a way to connect more advisors and, therefore, increase the number of local offices in Catalonia.
Reempresa is a member of TRANSEO. Transeo is a unique community of experts who supports the acquisition of small businesses around Europe. This collaboration helps Reempresa to foster the exchange of best practices and to improve their services.
