SUCCESSION or
M&A PLANNING
Planning for Your Business Exit.
You work hard building your business and creating wealth to provide for you family needs and to build a nest egg for retirement. Often, owners put their heart and soul into their business and make sacrifices to ensure its success and long-term viability.
When the time comes to transition from the business, there are a multitude of options and strategies to consider. It can be overwhelming and sometimes difficult due to family dynamics or because of underlying health problems, etc.
When it comes to Legacy Planning (this may include business succession planning and estate planning or both) it's ALWAYS better to start much earlier than you think. Planning 3-5 years in advance is ideal.
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Why so early? Essentially, if you want to maximize all the value you can from your business, it sometimes can take some extended timeframes to implement changes in your business and get the improved results needed. You may need to also consider extended timelines to implement tax-savings strategies to keep as much as your legacy wealth as possible.
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If you wait, you may find your life circumstances change and suddenly, you're rushed into selling or transitioning, leaving you no time to implement changes that could have increased your business value.
Protecting Your Business Legacy
Have you put much thought into what will happen to your business when you are ready to leave it?
It's important.
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Generally, there are three or four main scenarios that you might consider.
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1. Someone from your family takes over the business.
2. Employees might consider purchasing the business.
3. You sell the business to a new outside owner.
4. The business is acquired by another business in a merger or acquisition.​
Your choices become even more complex if your business is a partnership or publicly traded company.
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In scenario number 1 and 2, you need to consider (well in advance) who is best suited (and trained) to take over the business.
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Are one or more of your children interested in taking over the business? Are they qualified and genuinely interested? IF more than one, how do you determine which will get it or what positions would they be best suited for?
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If not your children, are other family members a potential fit? How quickly could they be trained to take over?
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If family members are not interested, have you identified your most qualified internal leadership candidates? If so, have you assessed and identified any competency gaps where they will be needing mentoring, coaching or additional training or certifications?
Obviously, solving these types of scenarios would take time to implement (training, etc.) so the earlier the better.
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In scenarios 3 and 4, where you are looking to sell the business to outside buyers.
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It is important to do everything you can to boost efficiencies, profitability, and implement systems to remove yourself from the day-to-day operations of the company.
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You'll get higher multiples on your business value when a new owner can take over the business and not have to rely on back & forth communications with the previous owner to sort out issues.
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Ensure your business has competent, dedicated employees who are empowered to make decisions on their own. Having a stable workforce is attractive to potential buyers.
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Ensure the business financials are optimized to demonstrate at least 2 years of normalized business income.
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You may need to also consider extended timelines to implement tax-savings strategies to keep as much as your legacy wealth as possible. This may require up to 2 years to set up proper strategies for savings
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If you wait, you may find your life circumstances change and suddenly, you're rushed into selling or transitioning, leaving you no time to implement changes that could have increased your business value.
Corporate Succession Planning:
Whatever your needs:
Our experienced team can guide you through a variety of options when planning your personal estate or succession planning for businesses.
The list below is just a sample of some services we can do for you.
If there are other services not listed, please call us to discuss and we can put together a package of services perfect for your specific needs.
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The bare minimum of necessary documents to consider includes:​
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Health Representative Agreement
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Power of Attorney Agreement
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A Will
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Our office can offer a host of other specialized services for business owners and high net-worth families. The list below is just a sample of other areas we can guide you through.
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Range of Value Services (Sell-ability & Value)
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Assess & prepare potential successors to business
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Pronominalization of the business to prepare for sale or transition (Turn-Key Operations)
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Developing Growth strategies and Tools
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Merger & Acquisition Services
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Access to Capital and Buyers looking for businesses
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Examining best Tax Strategies for transition
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Preparing younger generation to take control
Merger & Acquisition Preparation:
New Copy Needed Here:
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It's advisable to consult with legal and financial professionals when setting up a family trust to ensure it aligns with current laws and effectively meets your family's needs. Insure Wealth is ideally suited to assist you your succession planning.