Category: Exit Planning

Working on Value Drivers

exitadvisors September 29th, 2019 Exit Planning, Owner Objectives, Value Drivers

In a strong Merger & Acquisition (M&A) market, buyers compare the relative strength of your company’s value drivers to those of your competitors. In today’s M&A market, however, buyers want companies that possess all of the characteristics of a well-run business. Additionally, tighter credit forces buyers to use more of their own capital to buy businesses so they look for acquisitions that carry minimal business risk. Companies with strong value drivers in place carry less risk.

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Self-Made Problems That Can Harm Your Planning

exitadvisors September 28th, 2019 Exit Planning, Value Drivers

Planning for your business’ future success is a long-term effort in problem solving. Usually, the problems you’ll try to solve result from the natural evolution of the business. For example, as your business has grown, you may have hired more employees or managers to keep pace. Problems like these are good problems to have.

But as many owners create road maps for future success, they can create problems for themselves. Self-made problems are much more difficult for owners to solve,

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Select the Right Exit Path – Sale to Third Party

exitadvisors October 5th, 2017 Exit Planning, Third Party Sale

The market has indicated that 20 percent of businesses are for sale to a third party, but only one out of four actually sells. For businesses above $10 million per year; however, the odds improve to 50 percent.  In a retirement situation, a sale to a third party too often becomes a bargain sale – most often the only alternative to liquidation. This option becomes necessary in many situations because owners fail to create a market for their stock through sale to family members,

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Determining How Much Wealth is Needed After the Business Exit

exitadvisors September 19th, 2017 Exit Planning, General, Owner Objectives

When creating an effective, tax-efficient wealth transfer strategy, you should focus on three basic issues that should be resolved for successful wealth preservation planning to occur. These issues include:

Fixing your financial objectives before considering a wealth transfer.

  1. Determining the amount of wealth to be transferred and identifying how much is too much.
  2. Designing a wealth transfer strategy that keeps the IRS from becoming the largest beneficiary of your hard-earned cash.
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Avoiding Disasters in Insider Transfers

exitadvisors September 18th, 2017 Exit Planning, Internal Transfer, Owner Objectives

Steve Smith was no different than millions of other baby-boomer business owners in that the thought of leaving his business was never far from his mind, no matter how far away his exit might have been. He daydreamed about transferring the business to his oldest daughter and perhaps to a member of his management team, yet he couldn’t gauge their passion for owning a business and hadn’t tested their management skills.

 

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Five reasons owners sell their companies to their key employees

exitadvisors August 7th, 2017 Exit Planning, General, Internal Transfer

Five reasons that owners actually do sell their companies to their key employees:

  1. Owner has already achieved financial security. Owners who have already achieved financial security (separate from and prior to any sale or transfer of their companies) enjoy the luxury of selling to their key employees. They may have wanted to sell to them because they felt they “owed” their employees or even because they had promised to do so, but the reason they actually do so is because their own financial independence is secure.
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VALUE DRIVERS

exitadvisors March 28th, 2017 Exit Planning, Whitepapers

Did you ever wonder why one business has buyers lined up willing to pay top dollar while another sits on the market for months, or even years? What do buyers look for in a prospective business acquisition? The characteristics buyers seek must exist before the sale process even begins. It is your job as the owner to create value within your business prior to a sale.

To read more please click on the following PDF

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EMPLOYEE INCENTIVE PLANNING

exitadvisors March 28th, 2017 Employee Incentive Planning, Exit Planning, Whitepapers

Before they can sell or exit their businesses with financial security, most owners need to grow their companies’ cash flow and transferable value significantly. Without management leading the charge, this is a most difficult task in today’s economy.

Few sophisticated buyers will seriously consider acquiring a company that lacks a capable management team that remains with the business after the owner exits.

A sizeable percentage of businesses are sold to key employees—up to 40% according to a recent survey of 700 written exit plans created by advisors belonging to the BEI Network of Exit Planning Advisors.

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USING SHORT-TERM KEY EMPLOYEE INCENTIVES TO INCREASE SALES PRICE

exitadvisors March 28th, 2017 Exit Planning, Whitepapers

One of a business owner’s greatest challenges is to attract, motivate, and keep key employees. As owners near the finish line (the exit from their businesses), often tired and distracted by the end of the race, they often assume that it is no longer desirable to keep and motivate key employees. Keeping key employees is not only desirable, however, it is necessary if the business is to be sold—and sold at the highest possible price.

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LEAVE YOUR BUSINESS? IT’S INEVITABLE

exitadvisors March 28th, 2017 Exit Planning, Whitepapers

Owners begin thinking about the Exit Planning process when two streams of thought begin to converge. The first stream is a feeling that you want to do something besides go to work everyday: either you would like to be someplace else—doing something else—or you simply no longer get the same kick out of doing what you are doing.

The second stream is the general awareness that you:

  • Are close to financial independence,
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