 Hi everyone, this is Sonali. Thank you all for carving out some time for attending today's webinar on the episode 21 of the Business X Learning Series in where scale, value and exit. To all the attendees out there, please type in any questions you might have in the Q&A section and we will try to answer as many as possible at the end of the session. I would now like to welcome our speaker, Mr. Gaurav Mahra, Chairman and Founder of the Franchise India Group. A very warm welcome to you sir. Thank you Sonali and welcome friends and welcome to another edition with Business X. As Sonali said, this is our 21st edition and we continue to bring in thoughts on different topics largely around what I call investing, how to value your business, how to scale your business and how to exit your business. And I can tell you that all four are very important in the cycle of business. You need to really see different strategies at different time. Today we are going to talk about exit. Now this is a relatively term which is in pride used by a lot of the startup community and a new age, new economy businesses. They feel pride. I mean they would go out and tell these and that thing, but it had a stigma in terms of businesses which were conventional. The conventional business has never really proactively worked on exit. Exit was looking like a so to say failure or transferring the businesses. They want to really, our mindset was very clearly a legacy and this is also very behavioral. So it's also very Indian. We don't discard things. We don't take out things and that thing. While businesses don't have to discard it, but businesses also have to have a very strong exit planning. And this is becoming even more important now at various structures. So let me set the perspective. Today, if you really look around, there are many things happening to your businesses. Fundamentally it can be a time where you're feeling a lot of pressure because the business is now not performing. That can be one reason. It can be another option where you have a lot of businesses being invested on and you want to take your position consolidated and you want to really take out some businesses. Even the largest of the corporates have done that because at a certain stage they would like to focus on the core or to improve your balance sheet, you would like to correct something and take out some of the businesses which would can give you a better liquidity to focus on businesses. And you will see most of the corporates in the Q1, not in so much in the next quarter, which is not a Q4, but I think the Q1 of 2021, which is Q1 to Q22, you will see a lot of correction started happening. The next two to three quarters of that Q1, Q2, Q3, I see a lot of companies would strategically align themselves. A lot of even larger corporates would like to exit businesses which don't make sense to their long term strategy or they would like to see more strategies or more value coming in. Because in these times, you have both things happening. Some of the businesses might not make a long term strategy and there are also a lot of options coming on your way in some of your businesses which needs expansion. Like for example, you were an auto company and you're now moving big time on electric, which you need that even require 4, 5, 6 years of a lot of Kpex required and a lot of acquisitions can be done in that space because that is a futuristic and diving, but you have some other businesses which are not having that same kind of a growth idea for you or your brand doesn't stay for that. I'm saying Hero. Hero is strongly a two-wheeler company, has a global footprint now, shifting big time to electric, but they have a lot of other business interests as a group. They might look at some exits and want to focus on some of the core values and this you would see in the Q1, Q2, Q3, a lot of that would happen. There is also another scenario where you have really worked hard and build something and now you want to really retire or you want to cash out and things of that nature because you feel that this is a time for you need to take out. So there are different aspects whenever you look at exit, but there has to be a conscious planning whenever you want to do that. Even if you are feeling that the business has not really resulted in the manner which you thought needs to be resulted, that time you need to really do that and second is consolidation and third is selling for profit. So we want to talk about how do you really do your exit planning and that's one of the areas which we will need to talk about today. Another thing which we need to talk about why people exit, I've touched upon these three points, but there are many other reasons why people would look at an exit. Third, which is very important question coming to us these days is what is the right timing to exit? What is that timing and how do you really predict that? And fourth types of exit we can really talk about how you can really exit with that thing. How do you really determine the value of your exit? How do you really agree on something which you want to really set a value with you? We call the minimum acceptable price, it's called the map. How do you set your map? What is the minimum acceptable price for you to sell your business? And finally we'll talk about how you are going to be prepared for your exit structure. How do you want to set some perspective on that and who can be your buyer and how do you really define that buyer? So one of the areas whenever you start thinking of exit or doing exit planning, the starting point is to become unbiased to your own business. So you cannot be biased to your business, you need to really detach yourself and look at it fresh. And if you feel that you are not somebody who can do it because you so much attached to the business, get somebody who can do that for you. It can be somebody from your management, it can be somebody from outside maybe a consultant. Even BusinessX has a full team which comes and assess your business and tell you where the business really starts. And it should start with the foundation where the business was started and why it was started. And what kind of a business cycle has been? Has it been in the same cycle of expectation what you really wanted to do? Or it has overperformed, underperformed, not at all performed. A lot of times these things happen and you need to really see what was the business plan telling you and where we are at this stage. And if this is telling you some of the symptoms which are very important to catch and then that is the time where you need to really think about exit. Now again, issue is that is it a time where you're outperformed and you've done extremely well? Is it a time where you can sell it for profit? Absolutely, why not? You can really look at it. If you have underperformed, then there will be reasons for your underperformance, why it is underperformed? Because you didn't have enough to work in capital, you didn't have right kind of talent or you were not able to penetrate the market faster enough, your distribution was weak or whatever that was the reason. And third, if you're not at all performed, the business has always been having a sunk money. Just continue to do that. Where is a time where you need to say, I stop it, I pull the plug, I don't want to invest in that. Now this is where the biggest problem I have really seen. People who have this sunk money going in the businesses, they continue too far that the business goes into finally liquidation. When it is going to liquidation, you actually don't get any value. So there is a level of one clarity and transparency to yourself. At that stage, you can say, no more I can go further because I have no hope on it. The sunk money is an endless job and I've seen people doing, not for months, they can continue for years that sunk money and that sunk money continue to do that. And I've done mistakes myself. A few of my companies, which I was investor, I saw the business was not going on the right side, but just to settle sometimes a lot of things and you have obligations and business is running, you will continue to invest more and sometime bring in what I call artificial changes. Artificial changes or no, no, we got a new management structure. Now we change the strategy here or we're putting more marketing money or things of that nature, which doesn't give you really answers, real answers on that. So you need to really see and put some kind of an absolute timeline and said, let me understand that if the business is not giving you 90 day revival structure or symptoms of revival, then maybe this is a time where you need to really ask yourself that there is a competence issue of running the business. Business itself has an inherent value, not being there or third, it has some other area which cannot be addressed by you, but maybe another buyer can come in and buyer can be both strategic or financial. We'll talk about that in a little more in detail. But actually, if you really ask me, people who are intelligent and companies which are smart, they would do an exit planning when they start itself. They would do this planning at that stage itself. And now it's very important rather, even today, when you go to raise money, especially these startups when they go and raise money or pitch to a lot of investors and we do all the time in business sex, the one thing they are very sharp to really do is tell the investor what is the exit strategy. Because unless you really do that for both for the investor and for the founder himself, what, why he's doing all that, it's not very attractive. So how you want to be exiting intelligently is the important point here. So if you're not done your exit planning, take some time out, plan your exit and see how you want to be next 3, 4, 5 years and what would be your strategy to exit that. That's very, very important. Any kind of investment you've done, your business investment, which means that you're a founder and running your own business or you are a financial investor into a business and you are participating in that business, you also have to do that. Most of the time, the financial investors are very clear on their exit strategy. The business owners or founders who are running the business themselves are not very clear. So why we have to do it because we need to maximize our financial return on that asset. Any asset which we have invested or worked hard to perform, we want a maximum financial return. Second, we also need to really see that the new management comes in which has ability to take it to the next level. It also gives you a next orbit or a next growth cycle and sometimes it is also covers up the business fatigue which has come in. So there might be a business fatigue which is hit and especially classic businesses, they just become plateau. They just keep surviving themselves and have no growth, but they're great assets. They have to bring in a fresh energy, fresh outlook to the business. It might be a good idea to really do that. Now let's understand what is the importance of exit planning. Exit planning, sometimes it's forced on you. Exit when it's forced on you, then it's never going to be giving you the maximum financial return. It will never give you because you are now going to be on the defensive side, whatever is in that thing. So a lot of corrective pricing comes in. But if you have done that in planning and a lot of people don't want to do it because they feel that my business is doing already good and it's doing very well. And I think that's a perfect time. That's a perfect time to do that because you might be in some surprise to come in. And these days that happens all the time. And I know a lot of people who were phenomenally growing. I am talking to a company which was talking to me on international growth just before COVID. Big retailer going internationally and taking the business to multiple locations and they were ready to put a lot of money and he was also on the cycle of raising and certainly COVID happened. Now COVID is stretched. It's already gone to about nine months and this is already running ninth month. And you have phenomenal amount of losses. If you are a large retailer, you have so much of a burn. Now situations have completely changed where you were essentially at a certain stage when you're talking about international expansion and going to the world. Now you are on a correction side. So at this stage that there is a war room going on. How many stores we can shut? How many stores we want to really transfer through franchising? They're doing all the built-up transfer. So a couple of their good assets, they're trying to transfer that by shutting stores. And obviously the new expansion is gone. So this can really happen anytime these days. Economic cycles change. Unexpected competition really comes in. Destruction competition comes in. Like what happened to convention retail when online really hit them. A lot of changes happen in your business. So if you feel that there is a cycle you've done and you have reached to a certain level and the business is performing, it's never a bad idea to really assess your business and say, let me plan my exit. And that's how it needs to be done. More early you plan in the exit structure, more you will be able to design your organization in a manner that it is exit ready. Exit ready is very, very important because sometimes if you're not really designed to do that, you can get up into a wrong direction. And that's where you need to really do that. Structure of the business is very, very important because then only it will optimize your return. Otherwise, it will not optimize your return. You know, you're kind of a team. You need to have the kind of structure you need to have. How can you position yourself to future buyer? Who looks like your future buyer is also very important to be defined. So to me, timeline makes a lot of difference. And designing a potential future buyer which can be there for a business and designing your organization in accordance to that is very, very important. So a couple of things which are very important for when you're planning to exit for your business is extremely important is one I call building the right team. Team is very important because team would go in the transition. If the business is not having the right kind of quality of team, then it will be a challenge for you to transfer it to somebody else because the complexity of buying a business which is very complex to take over is not something that I think I have gone into a lot of these MNA discussions and at certain stage I've seen dropouts where the buyer would shy away not to take an asset purely from the complexity of managing that business. It depends too much on the owner of the company while the owner is great but he's not the principal. So he is a very, very critical resource for the business. And if it is not somebody who can be replaced, then your business is not ready for be sold. And especially when it is businesses is in too small hands, it's not really done driven by processes or systems, then it can have a big challenge. So first important aspect is that you're building a key team and what I say every time is that how do you make yourself redundant in the business which means you are not required and business can still run. If that situation is designed and presented investors like it because those are the businesses which are easily to be taken in. Second aspect is also where I've seen the problems really happen is that when you're building the business, you get a lot of other investors with you and these are investors who can be your early friends and you can be some stakeholder. Sometimes you give stock to your key employees and these become a very sort of say a lot of minority shareholders in the system. Now these minority shareholders are good because you're building up and at that time you need to really retain people or having them enrolled. You give them some in small and you know, share holdings or sometimes a lot of cases that people have given to media companies some kind of stakes for marketing dollar and things of that nature. I all feel that this can be a very complex situation. When you go for a new buyer, they don't want to deal with this. So how do you really define these minority investors is also very important because I have seen a lot of startups which were invested by a lot of media companies, strategic companies which came and gave them somebody who was your supply chain important guy who was given the stock in the company. All this become problem later because these minority shareholders or investors might not like and this can be a complexity whenever you are trying to do the sell out. So you need to really see one. You don't have too many of these micro investors sitting in your business model but if you have that then also in the contracts you have clarity of future buyouts and this should be easy. It should not go into some form of approval processes and structure and this all can become very complex. While I know in the initial days you call these angel investors, friends, families who come and invest with your company and they take up some stakes but I know when it business comes down to a level where there is certain decisions to be taken on at least on the exit part of it these minority investors can become a really big challenge if it is not well defined at the initial stage. So these are two very aspects. How do you really structure your shareholding and I think and how do you really put the system and processes and make yourselves redundant in the business. Now let's talk about a lot of reasons why people would like to exit the business. So market uncertainty is always one of the areas which creates a jitters in people like these are environments. These are environments where there is a lot of market uncertainty going on and people are not very sure how the business is going to be done and this also can cause the next step which is that the business has run out of enough capital and cash to flow further and I can see clearly that this is a time where a lot of good businesses out there but they don't have enough cash available to re-bounce the business in the entire. So it's not a bad situation to be in you are a good situation rather than jumping on and taking the responsibility of again pulling that business and with limited resources you are going into a bigger crisis which can cause larger business failure. So this might be a time where you feel that there is a somewhat kind of uncertainty is already started happening in the industry, economy or any other challenge. That is a time point bring in somebody who comes with loads of cash and can become it can be an option of either complete exit or diverse which means that you put some shares out in the company give majority, minority depending on where you are but that is the time market uncertainty gives you a signal that you don't want to go alone at that time because you might not be able to carry it through and that can become even more bigger problem because you can erode the value which you are already building. So at this stage my advice to most of the businesses is I'm asking them do you have enough cash availability and predictability of your future cash flows available for complete 2021. If you have that then you can take a plunge to really go alone if you don't have that then define how much you would be requiring to do that and bring in somebody else and if you feel that somebody else is not going to come you have to completely exit that also not bad at least the business would survive. So you need to really be transparent and open about this discussion because otherwise it would not work. Another area which is very important is sometimes this is very market uncertainty but there are also a lot of other reasons why people are selling I feel that a lot of businesses become fatigued they have some kind of a routine going on and there is no excitement left in the business and the businesses needs a complete need redo and revamp and restructure the new communication everything has to be done with that business and sometimes they don't have that the company owners don't have that ability or probably the same energy available for doing that that is also a time one should really look at an exit and this is an honest answer you need to give that that would the business you are running would continue to stay the same way over five years in the same state and I can tell you without even looking at it no business would remain in the state even if you are in a very classic business like the old hotel and which is on the center of the city and things of that nature you still not going to survive I can tell you a lot of companies which have these kind of assets which were classically running for decades and decades would not survive anymore so if this is not going to happen maybe start planning right away start planning how do you really want to change that another generation has also come in for the reason for exits is people are now looking to do different things in life and sometimes they are doing this and they have done it well and they feel that they are very competent and I can also tell you I work with one serial investor who comes and invest into businesses and at particular time he exits the business and actually I checked with him and say why are you doing that this because your business is almost at a verge when it going for a big value he says no I always know to reach to this level that is what I have done number of times in my life but I am not a guy who can take it 100 people company to 1000 people company this is not my strength area so he knows his strength area where he wants to participate in business and he goes and till that he picks up a good idea incubates to a certain level and pass it on to a much larger player in that thing one of the players which I think I am very impressed is Rani Scruwala like look how he did he brought one business earlier sold that business, built UTV built that business to a certain size sold that business now he is building this upgrade which is a ungrad which is a another digital e-commerce this edutech company and it has already been valued either way in times of India it is valued at 2 billion dollars already so he goes very clearly focused on one business one asset brings to a certain size attract that solid investors build the good foundational team and then finds himself an exit but he gives himself 4-5 years to run that one investment in the right cycle and he keeps and plans himself very well and it is not far you will see that he will run this business to a certain extent and then find a good investor and probably find an exit maybe it can through IPO or it can be from a larger strategic sale and things of that nature but this is the kind of investors which are I think follow very strongly what I call the exit planning this is how it needs to be done but some businesses don't do that and what happens to them is that they have to go into you know liquidation there are only 5 ways you can look at exiting your business one do a merger if you are doing sometime well but you are not really something which you can cover everything but there is another company which is like you bigger or smaller you can go and create a merger that is also a way of doing an exit second is find an acquisition you can be acquired by somebody who can be a strategic or a financial strategic most of the times would buy businesses which are sometimes not so doing well but they see that there is this value in this asset and they would come and participate and because they have some kind of strategic value they can turn around that asset or bring the asset to the next level so their strategic financial buyers are more likely to invest into a high performance businesses which have a good top or bottom line to really do that so they come with a more financial input on that but you need to really see where you are I mean I would say businesses which are not so performing need to focus more on the strategic buyers and businesses which are performing has to really look at more financial investors in the business so that is your acquisition cycle you can also look at selling to somebody who can be known to you who you know where within the circle can come in sometimes your immediate competition it can be somebody who even the management buyouts the core team comes in and says we want to take a stake and we want to run the business that's also happened and a lot of times we are back with some other investors who come and who has a compelling reason maybe outside you and interest outside you in your business that can also be somebody who can do that you can do a cycle you can do an IPO otherwise the last option for you is go for liquidation and liquidation also is not sometimes a bad strategy because you don't want to go further you want to really look at exiting the business so these are some of the areas which you need to really look at whenever you are looking and exiting a business so couple of things which before we try to summarize our discussion needs to be covered in whenever you are looking for exit one build a real management team good team you need to have set your documentation business processes and systems that you are redundant so your system is running your business you are not running the business anymore clean up your books books have to be very good clear transparent and structure I call the three things which are very important one build absolute transparency that nothing is really hidden and no intention is to hide second is of management control you are the day you want to really sell the business somebody should say I can be in top of it and run this business in no time and third is the micro indicators are showing future profitability and future success so if you are able to show some micro indicators at last quarter two quarters three quarters things have moved to a certain level where you can clearly say that the business can move from today this level to that level because people are buying your future they are not buying current so they are buying future so how do you really show your micro indicators your futures value that can be very important your inventories and your physical assets all has to be very clearly defined you need to maybe set up a good advisory board people with credibility who can say that this has been done and I think you can also hire a good team consultants who can also do an audit on that encourage if you say planning to do next year and exit you should start encouraging good auditing firms to start auditing your business so it will also give that thing get your leadership in place and create teams which are very aligned for a long term for the business that's also very very important again understand your contracts your agreements what all has been done every single contract agreement has to be designed that it is future investment ready that the future investor who comes in if he wants to go out of this contracts he can go out of this contracts because these contracts cannot be too long you know and like one of the companies I am an investor the founder came to me and he says I want to get into a contract with the company for something which he was committing for a supplier because he was getting a better rate from that supplier and and he asked for the contract for five years for that company I objected as an investor on that because I felt that was wrong because potentially the biggest company which cannot also be one of the suppliers can also be your buyer in the company and they don't want the competition being given contract for five years right so so idea should be that if the supplier wants to be participating in the business and you're doing a contract we're getting better rates maybe you start with six months one year kind of thing which renewal tomorrow anybody wants to invest which has a conflicting structure with this can change that contract or probably ship it to something else so please see your contracts and agreements that they should not have this so this is what you need to be preparing I think actively looking at your exit is not a bad strategy you should always be actively looking at it rather than forced upon so exit planning is very very important business X is known for it we were the first pioneers in what I call the low to mid market business sales where we work with you on valuation of the businesses and then eventually finding a right exit so this was half an hour presentation on exit this time I would like to now invite Sonali again to have some if she has some questions for me from audience then I will be happy to take it sure thank you so much for another great session Gaurav sir as always it was wonderful hearing your valuable insights and we do have a few questions lined up with us I will just take them up one by one so the first question is how to start preparing for an exit how to predict where my business might be in the next 5 to 10 years if I have just started out yeah so that anyway is very important that you need to really bring in some kind of predictability of your cash flow business size and that's the rule number one if you cannot go in uncharted direction without having any planning in place and you need to continue to see and revise your planning every 5-6 months also your exit strategy would also change depending on how you're resulting every quarter to quarter so fundamentally what I call this is a long term strategy been defined so you say that I will start from here and I would be a 20 million US dollar business from 5 years but in the first time you're not getting the numbers which you thought through so your strategies have to change and so is your exit and a potential buyer which can come in you know so this is very very important for businesses to really do and very carefully do that because businesses now run on a very short cycles you know from the changes and the disruptions and all of these are happening and I feel that the businesses sometimes you know just not having the right predictability fail it's not about how good or bad the businesses I feel that at this stage predictability like I'm telling you that a lot of people are not thinking that they would be able to revive their businesses after this COVID actually COVID has not hit anybody at this stage everybody sported COVID because even if you have employees cut down they obviously know that there's a global disaster if you have reduced their salaries that's also they've agreed upon but this is not going to be same it's going to come back expectations also would come back and your businesses would take time to come back so how do you really address that issue this is a serious issue because almost everybody would have the same expectation as COVID would go away the day vaccine is out people respect no no everything is normal now why should I be given anything separately but businesses are different they don't revive that same day when businesses have no understanding of vaccine coming or not coming they would have to go through the whole cycle again and if the disruption has already happened it's not easy it's going to be very very difficult because your talent would have moved out and things of that nature so at that stage you need to really be sharp enough to say if I have to continue to run out of 40% efficiency which I am running for next 6 months and maybe 60% efficiency for next 6 months and maybe 80% efficiency on the next 6 months which means that you are taking 18 months on a worse situation to continue to not be still there on a pre-COVID situation do you have enough gas to last that long and if not then maybe you are at this timing you need to think through that either I need to divest or I need to find an exit so this is very very important aspects which we are now trying to work with companies because we feel that companies have to have a very strong predictability in this business absolutely so the next question is from Surbhi Chaudhary and it's a rather straightforward one she says why would someone be willing to buy a business which is not profitable at the moment I believe Surbhi this is a buy time, this is perfectly buy time why I am saying buy time this is because the markets have just started to curve up I think in next one month it will start going in if anybody was intelligent investor would understand this it starts bottom from running businesses I am not talking about stock market and things like that so it just starts moving up and stock market will also behave like similarly because performance of the next quarter can be better if they start moving in so if this is the time where indicatively when the market starts showing you a positive turn around that is a time of buy because then you will have a run through over the entire I think if you run through goes up back then I think you get into the peak valuation back in right so good assets which are started to show up turn is a good time to buy absolutely and this also answers the next question we had from Amrish Chaudhary and the question was is this a good time to find buyers for a business since everyone is trying to save money because of this pandemic no nobody you know so investment cycle is not saving money money moves into stability and credibility at this moment that's for sure you know people want stability and they want also little bit of credibility in that asset so these are two things where people don't want to go into what I call extreme risk environment but that doesn't mean that I'm not the investment cycle is not there other investment cycle is big time today because people want to really have but their movement has move into not high risk they are looking for credibility and stability so how do you really demonstrate in assets that way what is the what kind of end I think so I personally feel I have both sides very strong on the hotel side I have sell side going up because sell side is pressured by say you are a real state operator and big real state developer and you have a big pressure bank pressure and you also because in your property you had one hotel 5 star hotel you build it and we have one actually seller like that so now he has his main business in big pressure where he has to be compliant other banks will take him to ncld and he is having this asset lying there which he wants to which is non court to him and his investors are pushing him why don't we sell non court assets now it can be timing it can get undervalued on the hotel because hotels are not performing at this stage but if you really ask me all good companies all good companies would wipe off all these kind of good assets which are available in the market they would like to use this as an opportunity if you really see all the big boys are ready I think the big funds are ready at this moment a lot of money would flow in as the assets would stock and I think none of the assets would stay in the market if it comes in the market will be big data because these are golden assets and this is where MNA would become more and more interesting for next 2-3 years I feel that this is a good timing for people to really invest into some of the assets you can consolidate your position you can do a lot of things at this moment yeah right so the next question sir is a bit personal but I think it can be generalized for a lot of businesses struggling during this time so the question is in case of a food startup which was incubated in 2017 launched in 2018 moved to 5 times revenue as of 2019 and has taken a severe beating due to covid having crossed quarter one of 2019-20 with surplus revenues versus last year and is now dragging since August 2020 with hardly 10% of revenues month on month as compared to last year the question is what happens to the valuation of the startup done on discounted cash flow methods as of March 2020 you know so this is a very important question and this is something which has to be not answered just by the DCF principle we cannot just go by and putting your current balance sheet because that balance sheet is currently been suffered and if you put the projected balance sheet I would like to take it from the last year performance and then do a DCF on that which means that I will take the numbers of March 20 and do a DCF for next 4 years now it would open up couple of questions for you one what kind of predictability and system you can demonstrate that the business in your case would come in the same levels or go in the certain high growth structure for next 3-4 years which means that inherently was the business very well designed in that manner and then other strategic value sitting there brand product what you are offering so the market is shifting priority of consumer how is going to buy and consume versus they used to buy pre-COVID a lot of things those can be answered I have seen a lot of businesses especially in the food which were financially attractive for things sporting them and those were right kind of sport life sporting things which were around it and as you pull these light sporting things the business just drops and that's something which has come out of a business is out there they were naturally not holding itself so I would have to go into depth of that asset more than happy to have a discussion on this but if the business is strong and business was good then it had all the inherent qualities of business and then I would say I would pick up March 20 numbers and then do a DCF on that and build valuation while if I go in the market today I don't have a positive sentiment for this investment otherwise it becomes difficult a follow up question feedback if any person puts in his own company's name don't take his name because these can be personal and sensitive information sure I will keep that in mind a follow up question on the same was while the startups are struggling probably losing out on their valuation more to do with their beyond control situation of COVID what are the investors doing would they be interested to invest on a distress valuation basis like distress real estate sale factor or would they be happy to keep their money in the conservative bank interest of 4 to 10% obviously nobody is going to invest today unless and until there is a future growth cycle and I feel that assets which are promising there is enough and more buyer available in the market good part is that the buy side is still looking strong in these times because it's a slow consumption cycle anything which was in market was not but if I was holding money I'm still holding money right so if March 2020 you had liquidity and chest with you so you conserve that piece and as the market would start showing you will start pulling the money back in the system so fund flow I am not so much of concerned at this stage really getting the right fitment right kind of the problem happens is that money is where the money is that they are becoming a little more greedy and asking for some ridiculous cuts on valuations which to me is also not making sense so the lot of if and but is going on at this moment while the discussions are many on I mean at business X also we are actively discussing the 40 plus assets which are at a transactional stage but every time this so to say balancing of expectation is becoming very big difficulty at this stage and but otherwise I think this I feel that the next quarter would be much better we will start seeing some transaction if I can answer I would just like to take up the last 2-3 questions so if your time permits yeah sure so another question we have is many SMEs are finding it difficult to sustain because they lack digital capabilities how should they overcome their hesitation to bring outsider tech people to help them and trust the outsiders yeah why should not you trust them this is a time of collaboration this is a time of consolidation this is a time of engaging with specialists rather than doing it yourself and that's something which is a must to be done and I feel that one of the mistakes people do is that they start trying to do everything themselves which doesn't happen and I know so many companies who wanted to create their own digital strategy and this strategy it doesn't work this is a time of collaboration you need to be good at what you are and go out and find out other areas are the best people in the world and that's where you build a good collaboration structures holding businesses to your chest and keeping just to yourself is a very old classic way of doing businesses and they are no more the way it should be done and people have become more and more important I read this statement today which Rahul Bajaj said earlier organizations used to make people now people make organizations so fundamentally now that you are a large organization in a corporate brand and things of that nature and you will create next level of people would come out of that and talent would come out of that now the talent is more important talent is actually building organizations so it's a other way around Rahul Bajaj was because of Bajaj Scooters now Rajiv Bajaj is actually the guy who creates and runs the business so it's his leadership his style of working how people approach businesses now so you need to collaborate with good quality talent good people who have their domain specialization this is a time of collaboration not by doing everything yourself absolutely and the last question I would like to take up we have many questions from people asking if our company helps in creating a business exit plan or if they are ready to take an exit and if they can get assistance from us to initiate the exit process we are kind of a specialist on a low to mid size I would say even assets which are in some crore to 10 crore kind of assets we are very very big specialist on that and more importantly if the businesses are around retail, e-commerce franchise things of that nature we have a big ecosystem on that so if depending on where you are and if you feel that you need a help in terms of valuing your business and then finding a right buyer it can be both strategic or financial you can reach out to Sonali and she will be more than happy to assist you absolutely so with this we just wrap up the Q&A session sir thank you so much for very patiently answering all the questions and thank you for another wonderful session if you can just to all the attendees if you want to contact Gaurav sir he is typing down his email ID in the chat box please get in touch with him regarding anything and if you want the previous recordings of any of our sessions a lot of queries I saw was based on valuation so we have done about 6 sessions specifically on valuation as well so if you need recordings of that please reach out to me I will be more than happy to provide it to you and Gaurav sir anything you would like to say in the end thank you very much I think this is a very interesting time and you need to ask yourself where you were placed are you somebody who is looking to acquire or sell or scale depending on where you are I think the time is now to action because there will be certain changes and I am very hopeful and optimistic that we are heading towards a very good quarter, January, February, March that is my own belief unless and until we have Parma rallies and other things also coming in because very unpredictable sometimes things happen but otherwise January, February, March to me looks like a news, good news because good news is very important for us and today Prime Minister going to check what is the vaccine station he is giving market signals very very sharp market signals every single 3-4 days and he is progressing towards that the markets would start reacting on every single signal he will give he is intelligent guy he knows how to pull up the market so a lot of liquidity lot of things would start happening but whosoever would not be prepared for that January, February, March would actually miss it this happens all the time market gives you both opportunities on up and downs you need to have understanding when you want to really use those both turn points when you want to use for top and what you want to do is that opportunity is this is my own perception you cannot hold me for this but this is purely my perception I feel that that time would be that period of January, February, March wonderful thank you so much Gaurav sir for your time and thank you to all attendees for attending this session if you have any feedback please your feedback is always welcome and we have this session every Saturday at 3 o clock so we will see you next Saturday with another session if you have any queries please feel free to reach out to me thank you so much sir thank you very much