Exit Planning is an on-going process. It begins with establishing your objectives and a valuation of your company and ends with your successful exit. Along the way, you and your Team of Advisors look at preserving the value of your company, protecting that value from creditors and increasing overall value. Also important is making contingency [...]

We’ve met few business owners who believe they should pay more income taxes every year. Instead, most business owners are frustrated with the inability to engage in meaningful income tax planning that reduces the annual tax bite. Take Thomas Lamplighter for example.
Thomas was a second-generation owner of a brickyard. His eventual Exit Planning objective was [...]

Near the end of 2008, we noted that the economic downturn had forced many owners to postpone their plans to exit their companies. We then looked at the several actions owners could take to respond to that delay:

Ride out the storm doing one’s best to protect value.
Use the time to build business value.
Avoid the delay [...]

Many, probably most, business owners would like to sell their businesses to their employees, but for one nagging problem: Their employees have no money. The desire to sell out to employees collides with the overarching need for financial security. Owners simply cannot risk selling a business to employees who have no cash.
Take James Johnson, owner [...]

Nora Chapman’s story was typical of most business owners. At age 54, she was ready to leave her 25-employee business. She was thinking of selling to one or two of her key employees and when we met her, her first question to us was: “Is this the right exit choice?”
Many of you find yourself in [...]

In an economy when many of us are tempted to bury our heads until the shooting is over, smart business owners are realizing that this may be the perfect time to acquire smaller, less adaptable, less capitalized or less well-managed competitors.
As the sellers of goods or services, owners sometimes forget that they, too, can be [...]