Hello everyone.
My business partner and I own equal shares in an e-commerce business we started a few years ago after we both quit our full-time jobs.
A few weeks ago, we had a terrible fight (not for business reasons). We haven't talked for a while. He left the country for a short vacation, which meant that I was in charge of everything. But today, he hit me with the news that he wants to quit our company, and I should get some money to buy it off, or he'd sell his share to the highest bidder.
I've known him for more than ten years, and I know that he's not joking. It's not just an attempt to get back for that black eye I gave him. We've had worse fights since we started working together. He's serious about this.
Our business is registered as LLC, and as far as I understand it, he can't do that. But he keeps sending me messages that either I pay him 300K (he knows I don't have such an amount available) in the nearest two weeks or he finds someone else.
I offered to take care of the business alone while he'd receive half of the profits, but he got stubborn, saying he no longer wanted to have any business with this project.
Our business has recently started bringing good income. We managed to scale it up and even had to resort to fulfyld.com because we could no longer handle the delivery properly since there were too many orders and we were short of hands. Everything is great now in the company, and the last thing I need is a stranger messing around and interfering with the work of my last few years.
Can he really sell his share even if I'm against it? Is there any way to stop him for a few months until I gather the whole amount? What is the first step I should take to save my company?
I'm baffled, and I'd appreciate some advice regarding this situation. Thanks in advance.