This paper presents novel evidence on entrepreneurial exit paths available to privately held and largely mature SMEs in Ireland using data gathered in telephone interviews. We explain the entrepreneur’s intentions for his exit path in terms of the entrepreneur’s assessment of (a) his potential successors and (b) the attractiveness of his business to potential successors. We use a three stage nested logit estimation designed to recognise the possibility of different variances across alternatives and correlations amongst subsets of alternatives rather than multinomial logit estimation techniques. Our results reaffirm that lack of available successors limit the choice set of entrepreneurial exit paths. Pecuniary motives, the location of the business and family involvement were important covariates explaining entrepreneurial intentions. Mechanisms to support entrepreneurial exit should target; (1) non family businesses rather than just family firms and (2) assist firms in locating and engaging with potential buyers, particularly firms located in rural regions.