Selling a business can be sparked by personal reasons – retirement, ill health or just losing drive. But sometimes it’s prompted by more altruistic motives, like the good of the business.

That was the case for Greg Jolly and Russell Coxall, who have sold their stakes in the BVCI Group to Sydney-based Formit Services Pty Ltd because they have grown the business three-fold in the five years they have been joint owners, but now admit it needs “higher-level managers than us to take it to the next level”.

When the pair bought Ballarat, Victoria-based BVCI in a management buyout from its former family company owners in 2004, it had 35 staff and one site, manufacturing precast concrete products and rotational moulded plastic products. It was then known as Ballarat Vibrated Concrete Industries. Today the BVCI Group has almost 100 staff, three sites in two states, and has added Envirosep, which manufactures sewage treatment systems, and Plastek Poly Products to the stable.  Annual turnover has reached $20 million.

“BVCI has outgrown us,” Mr Jolly said. “It needed another level of management structure and that was not our field or expertise.” Despite the sale, neither former director is abandoning the business they have worked in for 18 years in Mr Coxall’s case and 12 for Mr Jolly. (BVCI was launched in 1967.) Both executives are staying with BVCI for “as long as it takes” for them, and the new owners, to be confident the transition is seamless and everything is running smoothly.

Mr Jolly and Mr Coxall together made the decision to seek a buyer, once they realised that remaining with BVCI and expanding the management team would not be successful if they were still part owners. “That would threaten the business and hold it back. Our decision was unselfish, and for the benefit of the business in the long term,” Mr Jolly said.

They enlisted the assistance of Brett Plant, a partner with PKF Corporate Advisory, in Brisbane, because they had built a good rapport with him in previous business dealings. “We were at a crossroads and needed to look at all the options,” Mr Jolly said. “PKF could help us achieve that.”

The directors were not keen to step aside from day-to-day management but retain the liability that business ownership attracted. “We needed a larger company with a robust management structure and more experience in financial and business management,” Mr Jolly said.

Mr Plant began seeking a potential purchaser, having prepared a comprehensive Information Memorandum that outlined the facts and figures on BVCI.

“The directors, having successfully developed the business to generate impressive operational and financial performance, considered its continuing successful development, and the position of staff, could best be secured under the direction of a committed new owner able to appreciate and leverage the growth platform BVCI represented,” Mr Plant said. “The key was finding a potential owner with the right strategic fit and one the directors were happy would take the business forward in the way they envisaged.”

Mr Jolly said he and Mr Coxall left the business negotiations to Mr Plant. “We were still running the business 24/7 and didn’t have time to get too involved at that level.”

Mr Plant said the business was an attractive purchase. It was in a strong competitive position (compared with other market participants) because of its product quality; long history of manufacturing experience; excellent reputation in the marketplace; clear market positioning; and successful relationships with existing customers.

Once a good match was identified, the deal progressed relatively quickly and smoothly. “We got the deal we wanted,” Mr Jolly said. The terms of settlement are confidential.

The former co-owners were pleased with the way PKF and Mr Plant found the right buyer and concluded a contract that suited all parties with no serious hiccups on the way.

The transition to new ownership is still in the early stages. Neither Mr Jolly nor Mr Coxall are in a hurry to leave, and the new owners are happy for them to continue. “We’re not working to a date, but to a process, and to getting it right,” Mr Jolly said.

Both men Ballarat based, with young families, and are not keen to leave the area. But there’s no doubt that, down the track, they’ll surface in some new business roles and aim to emulate the success they created with BVCI.