Wow, my business partners are pissed. I can't think of any better way to say it.
While I thought we were still negotiating, they've come across in emails over the last twenty-four hours like this was their best offer, take it or leave it, and they are furious. Nobody has threatened to quit again, but they've told me we are way off, and that I'm not negotiating in good faith. I told them they said I should make the changes to their spreadsheets I thought were appropriate, and that's what I did. They certainly didn't mention "best offer" when they sent them.
Frankly, this really pisses me off, because I don't think they're being reasonable. They don't want to compromise on anything. I really expected them to come back with some type of compromise about the tax situation and 18-to-24 month time range, and then I'd work with my lawyers, tell them about the goodwill clause, and then the paperwork would take as long as it needed to take.
Now I don't know where we are. We just have one person out on vacation now, but George and David are still playing the lead for their group, and we've agreed to meet Thursday morning for breakfast. I told them to invite any partner that wanted to come, but they've indicated it will just be them. I didn't push them too hard, because they're already upset, but I did ask them to look at things from my perspective.
If I wasn't dealing with geeks I'd think they were doing all of this as a negotiating tactic, but I can only guess that they think they're offer is reasonable. When I do the math it doesn't work out to be an awful lot more than book value, and book value is not striking me as a reasonable offer right now.