How much to take on a limited company name?

Mickey666

More like a derisory offer though than negotiating hard.  Depends on their attitude I guess, but they might well decide it's hardly worth it.  It's not as if it life-changing money, either way.

Sandtree

Autumn_Leaves said:

The issue is that the butchers is named after the street, Queen Street and there was some hassle to be able to use this name.

Ok, so this makes a little more sense now... Queen is a sensitive word in a company name and requires special permission to be able to use it:
Annex A: Sensitive words and expressions specified in regulations that require the prior approval of the Secretary of State to use in a company or business name - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

I assume you are looking at Queen Street Butchers Limited? If you arent happy with their price then you'd be free to register Butchers of Queen Street Limited which isnt currently used by any company  and then you will have to go through the process of getting permission to use the name from the Cabinet Office. 

Its up to you to decide if its cheaper/easier to buy the company from them or register a new company with a similar name and have to go through the permissions process.

Autumn_Leaves

Thanks again and yes Queen being in the word does mean a letter to get permission but that wasn't such a big deal. We are meeting today so we shall see what happens. It isn't the end of the world as we do have other options and thank you to all for your input.

Slinky

You can get round all of this by operating as Autumn Leaves Ltd trading as Queen Street Butchers

Mistral001

It would appear that in this case the Ltd Company name is the same as the trading name but with "Ltd" added to the end of it.  If you want to continue using the trading name that will mean that the Ltd Company name will no longer be unique and so there will be a problem.   The trading name and the Ltd company should be treated separately.  The trading name is not an entity in law like the Ltd Company, but it can have value of its own independent of what the Ltd Co is called.

Grumpy_chap

I wonder how this went and what the value of the name for the "Butcher of Queen Street" went?  I can also see that "Queen Street Butchers" might be more suitable to avoid jovial links to characters of a sour disposition.

What is the value of a company name though?  Does the value change with time?  There is a local guy near us who owns a burger van and he sold the original name.  I doubt he got much for the name, as he still lives in the same house, still drives the same car, and still operates a burger van.  The value of that trading name now is very likely many, many multiples greater.  The burger van now is called "Must Eat".  The burger van used to be called "Just Eat".

Is there a player in the field that has a vision for "Queen Street Butchers" beyond simply just being the butcher's shop located on Queen Street?  Another bidder with grander ideas will make a difference ot the potential value of the name.

General_Grant

So the company hasn't been in existence for a decade yet, so not offering a long history and was almost compulsorily struck off a while ago.

Sandtree

Grumpy_chap said:

What is the value of a company name though?  Does the value change with time?  There is a local guy near us who owns a burger van and he sold the original name.  I doubt he got much for the name, as he still lives in the same house, still drives the same car, and still operates a burger van.  The value of that trading name now is very likely many, many multiples greater.  The burger van now is called "Must Eat".  The burger van used to be called "Just Eat".

Just look at all the high street brands that have gone bust recently and companies have bought the name to move it into an online only brand. All of this is intangible/goodwill and so pricing is every difficult and certainly changes with time. Something is worth what the highest bidder is willing to pay for it. TopShop clearly had value today and in all probability would have continued to have value in the future. If Karen Millen hadn't been bought up straight away you'd imagine it'd disappeared much quicker being just a random name.

You'd need to speak to the local guy to ask what he got and why he did it if he has gone on to set up the same business again... the devils in the detail.

A former associate had set up a brand with two protected characteristics and it had taken him years to get approval, it was a pure middleman selling someone elses product online. He sold the business with its branding to another larger company who wanted to expand the product range because they felt the brand had exceptional value. He too still lives in the same house still, I suspect some of the Bentleys parked outside were new and the "spare room behind the detached garage" was big enough for a 12 seater call centre (and a spacious one at that). 

This chap in particular has had several arguments with the company he sold to firstly as he didnt want to continue running it after the purchase but it was a condition of sale and secondly his "wife" setup a similar business a few years after with a subsequent argument over the non-competition clause of the deal. 

Grumpy_chap

Sandtree said:

He too still lives in the same house still, I suspect some of the Bentleys parked outside were new and the "spare room behind the detached garage" was big enough for a 12 seater call centre (and a spacious one at that). 

That is not the life of the one-trailer burger van man...

Sandtree

Grumpy_chap said:

That is not the life of the one-trailer burger van man...

But is the life of someone who claims to have been an alcoholic barrister that was living in a squat... he was always a bit hazy on the details of how he went from that to successful business person. He had the house, model wife and most the cars before selling his company and given the contact centre was in his house that too must predate the business.