Suppliers typically care the most about their selling price, your reliability and expediency as a buyer, and the quality of your brand as a distributor for the supplier. A third party sale is more likely to jeopardize what suppliers care about than an employee ownership sale.
Suppliers typically care the most about
- their selling price,
- your reliability and expediency as a buyer, and
- the quality of your brand as a distributor for the supplier.
In a third-party sale (strategic or financial), any of these attributes can be at risk. There is a key potential conflict following the acquisition that the third party buyer's strategic or financial vision, cost-cutting plans, or different business practices may not align with what existing suppliers desire, creating tensions between preserving supplier relationships and the new owner's priorities.
By contrast, an employee ownership transition often reassures suppliers on seeing further improvements on the attributes they care about. In fact, Once Again Nut Butter in Nunda, NY decided to become a fair trade purchaser of its international inputs following its conversion to an ESOP, and now pays those vendors a fair trade premium to help spread the wealth even further.