by Cristian Anastasiu, Excendio Advisors
It was a Friday late afternoon in December. The kind of day where the sky turns gray by 3pm and you could already hear the wind picking up outside – a major blizzard was forecasted within hours, just in time for the Holidays. We were all in my client’s office in a major Midwestern city, getting ready to close a deal on which everybody had worked hard for almost a year.
It had been a near-death experience of a deal – multiple times over. The strategic fit between the two companies was obvious, but the personalities of the buyer and seller could not have been more different, very far from what anyone would describe as a “match made in heaven.” Quite the opposite.
But here we were. My client, the buyer, their respective attorneys, and I had everything in place, and we were finally getting ready to sign. We were anxious to close and move on after all this time – and equally eager to beat the blizzard home before it swallowed the highways.
Then, out of nowhere, the buyer turned to my client, who was sitting behind his desk, and said: “During all our negotiations and meetings here over these past months, I came to love your desk.”
It was, admittedly, extraordinary. A massive, dark walnut piece, hand-carved, with the kind of weight and presence that made you understand immediately why it had been in the family for generations. The buyer continued: “I can’t wait for Monday to come and start my work behind that desk. I’ve pictured myself there for a while now. It will be a privilege.”
“Excuse me?” came the reply from my client – calm, but with an edge that filled the room.
“I got this desk from my grandfather, and he got it from his father. This is a family treasure. It goes with me.”
“But the desk was included in the fixed assets list, which is part of the agreement,” said the buyer. “I expect it to stay. We bought it.” The fixed assets list typically includes furniture and depreciated equipment – items of negligible value relative to the deal itself, the kind of thing both sides initial without a second glance.
“Then there is no deal,” said my client. Without hesitation.
The room went quiet. Instantly. The next seconds felt like minutes, the minutes like hours. Is this what kills the deal? A desk? Knowing my client, I had a very real thought that he might choose to keep the desk – keep the company – and walk away from what was, by any measure, an excellent outcome for him. I believe the buyer sensed the same thing, because he didn’t push back the way I expected.
I asked for a few minutes alone with the buyer. I reminded him that he had just acquired something remarkable – a business, a team, a legacy – and that starting that chapter by stripping a family heirloom from the man who built it was not the foundation either of them deserved. The desk had no material value in the context of this deal. But the goodwill of letting it go? That was worth far more than anyone in that room could put on a fixed assets list.
Thirty minutes later, the buyer agreed to let the desk go. We signed. We made it home before the blizzard.
I’ve told this story many times since, and people always ask about the desk. But the question it really raised has stayed with me far longer:
What is your desk?
If you are a business owner preparing for the sale of your company, what is that something you will have a hard time letting go of? And I don’t mean necessarily a material thing. I mean the daily rhythm of working alongside your team. The clients who have trusted you for decades. The mentorship, the identity, the weight your title carries in a room. The vision you’ve been chasing. The dreams not yet finished. The memories threaded through every corner of what you built.
How will you replace them? Or learn to live without them?
Every owner has a desk. The ones who find it before they’re sitting across from a buyer – those are the ones who close with no regrets, and begin what comes next with clarity and peace of mind.
Knowing your “desk” is not just part of preparing to sell your business.
It is the most important part.