Succession and sale / Question 2
Is my company ready for an external buyer?
Intelligence, not legal advice. Screening is a starting point, not a clearance opinion.
A buyer pays for a business that runs without you and separates cleanly from your private affairs. Three things decide that early: non-operating assets, documentation, and who owns the rights the business uses, starting with its name.
01 / Non-operating assets
Separate what the buyer is not buying.
Property, land or a private collection held in the company are not what a buyer wants to pay for, and they complicate the price. UBS advises dealing with them before the sale. (UBS Succession Study 2026)
UBS’s seller questions add surplus cash and participations, to be reviewed with tax specialists together with the legal form and the timing of the sale. (UBS, Selling a company)
Check a brand name ↑02 / Documentation
A company is transferable when it is written down.
Clean, complete documentation of internal and external processes and agreements is what makes a company transferable, according to UBS. (UBS Succession Study 2026)
Every agreement the business depends on is something a buyer will read: customer and supplier contracts, leases, licences. The same goes for the rights in its name.
Check a brand name ↑03 / Who owns the name
The brand is an asset if the company holds it.
A buyer’s counsel reads the trademark register. It names the holder, the goods and services covered and the dates. If the holder is the founder rather than the company, or the list no longer covers what the business sells, it comes up in due diligence.
In our analysis, 37% of trademark applications filed in Switzerland from July to September 2026 named a holder with no company legal form, typically a private person.
Antevo analysis of national trademark applications in the Swiss register (Swissreg, IPI) with a filing date from 1 July to 30 September 2026, the latest full quarter our copy of the register holds almost completely; as of 16 October 2026. A holder name counts as carrying a legal form when it contains a recognised company or organisation form (AG, GmbH, SA, Sàrl, Sagl, Ltd, cooperative, foundation, association and others). The rule fails safe: a company whose form it does not recognise counts as having none, so the share may run slightly high. Address and representative as recorded by the IPI; the 429 applications without a recorded address are not in the Swiss-address figures. Counts only: no holder is named.
Check a brand name ↑04 / In Antevo
Start with the name the buyer will check.
The free check screens a name across 50+ trademark registers and lists the marks near it, with office and status, and the holder where it is a company. A private individual is never named: the result says “individual applicant” instead. If that is your own mark, it is the first thing to raise with your counsel. No account needed; the answer appears on this page.
Check a brand name ↑Sources
Where this comes from.
The study behind the figures and the primary sources for every legal point. Intelligence, not advice: nothing here is legal, tax, estate or investment advice, and your lawyer, notary or tax specialist confirms anything a decision rests on.