Entrepreneur Acquired the Company, But on the Condition That the Owner Remains for Another Five Years

In the European Union, around 450,000 small and medium-sized enterprises with about two million employees go through the business transfer process every year. In about 150,000 cases, the business transfer process is not approached adequately, putting around 600,000 employees at risk, said Mirela Alpeza, director of CEPOR and full professor at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek, at today’s round table on the topic ‘Acquisition of Businesses by Entrepreneurs Retiring as a Way to Enter Entrepreneurship’.

While it is well known that many micro and small enterprises established in Croatia in the early 1990s are still overseen by their founders, it is refreshing to hear positive experiences from those who have successfully sold their companies and will retire in peace.

Robert Jurić, a senior physiotherapist and defectologist by profession, completed his studies in Germany, after which he worked for two years as a defectologist in Munich. He returned to Croatia and wanted to work in the defectology field at home, but there were not as many opportunities as in Germany, until one day he accidentally came across an Austrian company dealing with medical equipment and started working for them. He was the director of one branch in Croatia, and then after a few years, he parted ways with the Austrian director who ‘started engaging in illegal activities’.

– By force of circumstance, I became an entrepreneur. At that time, it seemed like the only option, said Jurić, former CEO and owner of Famax, a company that has been operating in the domestic market for over 30 years and is the exclusive representative and distributor of German Meyra orthopedic and rehabilitation aids.

The decision, he says, was initially for Famax to remain a small, agile, and stable company, and by coincidence, his daughter started studying medicine at that time, so it was expected that she would inherit it. However, as is often the case, at the end of her studies, she said that she was not interested in the business at all and did not want to deal with it. Robert Jurić and his wife then found themselves in a situation where they had to think about selling the company that had no one to inherit it, and then Nikola Orsanić from Consultarium appeared and became their advisor in that process.

– It is important to say that Robert started the transition on time because he realized that he was essentially his company and that it was the right time to initiate the sales process at 60, rather than waiting until 75. This is an ideal example of good thinking. Robert and I met, I made him an offer, and we started with the company’s analytics, going deep into it to assess its value and understand its strengths and weaknesses to get a sense of what the true sale value of the company is, as it is one thing for the owner and another for the market, said Orsanić.

Flourishing After Acquisition

After the duo agreed on the value range, Famax went to market, and offers (given the interesting niche) came quickly, with many individuals expressing interest, people who had not spent their careers in entrepreneurship but were in business. After several negotiations, the decision was made. The company was acquired in September 2023 by Boris Sruk.

– I worked in corporations, banks, as a consultant, went through the medical sector, media… But the desire for entrepreneurship kept coming back to me. Not just to own companies, but to be specifically involved in something. For three or four years, I was sniffing around for what to buy, and then one night, on the CEPRA website, a teaser was published for a 30-year-old company dealing with the sale of orthopedic aids. I responded to the ad, and we were in contact by morning and soon signed an NDA. The due diligence was the same as in large acquisitions, said Sruk.

Explaining how difficult it was to get money from banks for such an investment (and how easy it is for larger companies), Sruk admitted that he ventured into a niche business he knew nothing about, and then realized that the medical aids Famax sells are much more than products – they help people with their daily functions and normal lives.

– My only condition was that Robert remain in the company as sales director for the next five years, added Sruk, who took over Famax with three employees (including the owner), and soon after increased the team to seven, and shortly thereafter to eight employees.

– The sales assistant we recently hired had his first sale of a wheelchair somewhere near Trogir. Cost cutting and development have become parallel, just like in large companies, he says.

While examples of founders who remain in the company after its sale as sales directors are not often seen (or not written about enough), Jurić is fine with it, and since he cannot be without work, he will embark on new adventures in retirement.

– I feel good. It’s hard work, we’ve hired new people, I’m still flying in 100 directions and I’m really busy, but I’ve never shied away from work. Selling the company is a matter of rationality, not emotion. If you have trust, as I did in Nikola, then everything will go smoothly. You just need to trust the person you are working with.

As I said, I do not shy away from work nor will I shy away in retirement. We have an olive grove on the island where my daughter works as a doctor today, and I will engage in growing various fruits and vegetables. There will be work even in retirement, concludes Jurić.