Fictional owner, Peter Miller, had called his accountant to ask her to help him value his business with the idea of retiring in a few years. No stranger to Exit Planning, his accountant assembled all of Peter’s advisors and launched a complete Exit Planning process. She began, not with an examination of how a transfer [...]

“I can’t play golf every day.”
“My wife wants to see more of me — but not at every breakfast, lunch, and dinner!”
“What do other ex-owners do after they’ve sold out?”
Failing to answer these concerns can create vacillation, reluctance, and ultimately, an unwillingness on the part of many owners to proceed with planning for their business [...]

Making Sure the Business Continues When You Don’t
Greg King barely survived helping his oldest son learn to drive and now it was time to teach his younger son. Before putting himself through on-the-road training one last time, Greg called his life insurance representative. “I have no co-owners to buy my company if I don’t come [...]

When transferring your company to insiders, a Low Value can put Dollars in your pocket.
Owners of successful businesses valued between $2 and $5 million face two difficult exit problems:
1. Cash buyers are usually seeking larger companies; and
2. Owners are generally unwilling to assume a long-term installment note because of the risk of non-payment.
Given these hurdles, [...]

The last step in your Exit Plan is Wealth Preservation Planning. But that doesn’t mean you should wait until you are out of the business to begin actively preserving your wealth. In fact, if you wait until the value of your business is converted to cash, it may be too late to realize all of [...]

There may be nothing worse for a business than to have its owner suddenly die. . . especially if it’s your business.
Let’s look at what can happen when an owner dies.
Joe Carpenter was the 55-year-old sole owner of a successful construction company. Joe hoped to sell his company to a third party in the next [...]

How do you successfully transfer your business to a child, key employee or co-owner? The most successful method is to follow a recipe that mixes, in equal measure, three key ingredients:

One part: the ability, experience and dedication of the prospective new owners;
One part: a company with strong, consistent cash flow and little debt; and
One part: [...]

What is a good way for you to get top dollar for your business?
First, consider selling to an outside third party, not to an insider such as a child, key employee or co-owner. Outside third parties typically have the cash and the ability to pay a higher earnings multiple for your business.
Secondly, proceed through planning [...]

If there is no one to buy your business, you shut it down. In a liquidation you sell off your assets, collect your accounts receivables, pay of outstanding debt, and keep what’s left, if anything for yourself.
The primary reason to consider liquidation is that a business lacks sufficient income producing capacity apart from the direct [...]

You might begin the business transfer process with the thought that a sale to a key employee, co-owner or family member is the path to maximum cash on departure. This is very seldom the case. With proper preparation, more often than not, you can maximize the net dollars you receive by selling to a third [...]