At some point all successful business owners face an important question; should I sell?
The answer for many in a purely financial sense is often ‘yes’. But after years of building a business from scratch, the prospect of selling can be an emotional experience for founders and their families.
Many clients in this situation need to weigh up the satisfaction of running a busy, profitable enterprise against the chance to establish genuine financial freedom for their families and future generations.
The decision to sell is the starting point, owners must then negotiate through a series of key challenges to manage smoothly through the transition – and it’s not a process they should do alone.
From experience business owners who have assembled the right team of experts to guide them through a sale always come out in better shape on the other side.
Integro Private Wealth has recently partnered with BDO (WA) to launch BDO Private Wealth offering a complete suite of financial and business advice solutions to clients with sophisticated needs.
One of the reasons we established BDO Private Wealth was to provide successful business owners with access to multi-disciplinary advice to help them through complex situations such as a sale.
While each case is different, there are five important challenges during the business sales process where the right advice can make a difference:
- Getting it together – owners must first decide on the best way to structure any business sale, covering issues such as tax, succession planning and asset protection. There are efficiencies of bringing all of these different technical components under the guidance of BDO (Tax, Corporate Advisory and M&A), to coordinate the sale.
- What to do next – once the deal is finalised, and cash is in the bank, the story is not over. While founders and their families may now have financial security, they may not have financial peace of mind. Specialised advice from a team that understands the whole picture will help clarify the next steps and identify any barriers.
- How to transition – often owners take a staged approach in exiting their businesses, with sales proceeds in tranches as well as ‘work out’ periods. At BDO Private Wealth our advisers guide clients through this transitional period and project manage the financial and administrative aspects of our client’s daily lives.
- Where to invest – newly cashed-up business sellers can be the target of unsolicited investment offers. Professional financial advice can create robust long-term portfolios and steer clients away from where not to invest.
- Resetting risk – by their nature, business founders are usually risk-taking entrepreneurs. However, once a business has been sold the risk profile can change as philanthropic and generational financial security matters take precedence. We help clients find the right balance by using sophisticated investment risk profiling, cash flow modelling and projection tools.
Business success is always due to successful teams, not a single player. With BDO providing the structuring, tax, corporate advisory and M&A advice, and BDO Private Wealth providing the personal financial advice, you have a team dedicated to your success.
Contact your local adviser for a confidential discussion to see how we help you manage the sale of your business, leaving you to concentrate on what matters to you.
BDO Private Wealth (WA) Pty Ltd, ABN 11 637 294 083 (AR Number: 1283557) is a Corporate Authorised Representative of Integro Holdings (WA) Pty Ltd ABN 61 612 297 739 AFS Licence No. 489444
General advice warning – the information, including tax information and any advice provided in this document has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Because of that, you should, before acting on the advice, consider the appropriateness of the advice, having regard to those things. [If the advice relates to a particular financial product: You should obtain the relevant Product Disclosure Statement for any product mentioned and consider its contents before making any decision.