Successful owners who choose to sell their business have many things to think about before beginning the process. Owners who are new to the process should consider not only the financial ramifications of selling their business but also how it can affect their life after the sale has finished. To make the selling of a profitable business much smoother, there are five things to consider. First, it begins with the question: What financial means do I need to support my current lifestyle?
Enterprise Families
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Generation Succession
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Explore the good, the bad, and the ugly around succession and generational transitions of power and control within families of wealth. Hear from one Gen 7 family on their recent generational succession, what prompted the transition, and how they navigated the practical and emotional challenges.Nate Imfeld, Attorney, Foley & Lardner, LLPTorri Hawley, Windway Capital, NextGen
Go Slow to Go Far
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Traditionally, wealth advisors use a succession planning framework that involves working with the founders to look downstream to the next generation for an effective “passing of the baton” strategy. In contrast, a multi-generational approach encourages each person within the family system to contemplate and share with others where they’ve come from, what they’ve come with, what they wish to pass on, and what they wish to leave behind.
Getting the Conversation Started
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Succession is not just about money or property. It means confronting family relationships and taking the time to make sure that the drivers for succession planning connect personal motivations, the purpose of wealth, and specific family issues. It requires an emotional commitment to a process that once started must run its course, including having conversations about fairness, equity, choices about who is in “the family,” and their capabilities for current and future roles.
Get the Most from Your Board of Directors
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A high-quality board of directors with a range of talents and experience can be a powerful resource for your company. Taking steps to ensure your board is well-designed, well-informed, and properly engaged will reap significant benefits for your company’s shareholders and management team.
A new FOX study, “Capturing Opportunity and Managing Risk in the Next Decade,” is now available for members who are interested in taking a proactive approach to risk management across the enterprise. Complexity and risk are inevitable consequences of building and perpetuating wealth. Therefore, the issue at stake for families of wealth is not risk avoidance, but rather, risk management. Well-managed risk presents opportunities, but it takes a team operating as trusted partners to sort through the range of risks, helping families make the best decisions.
The ABC of Family Partnerships
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In order to simplify the wealth structure and investment vehicle, many high-net-worth families collectively pool the assets of individual family members to form a legal partnership entity. The resulting economies of scale can lead to significant fee savings, as well as open the door to a larger universe of investment choices for smaller accounts. When deciding the type of partnership structure to form—a limited partnership or a limited liability corporation—there are some best practices and investment options to consider in the process.
Major disruptions to the normal course of business are heading our way, and enterprise families will be uniquely challenged by unforeseen risks and opportunities. As trusted advisors to ultra-wealthy families and enterprises, our industry needs to understand how to have effective conversations to prepare clients for these looming disruptions. To address these challenges, FOX embarked on its 2019 Opportunities and Risk Study.
Once a family recognizes they own and manage a complex range of endeavors, the family leaders need to look strategically across the enterprise at where opportunities and risks exist. They should then assess where the opportunities and risks exist and how to allocate capital to the best alternatives.
The family enterprise provides a strategic framework for families to stay together and accomplish the shared goals of growing wealth and managing risks through the generations. Within the enterprise, the Private Trust Company (the PTC) provides a beneficial mechanism to support the enterprise and the family’s growth and development. In addition to managing trustee duties, a PTC can institutionalize the family ownership and governance functions and may invest in the development of capable trustees and knowledgeable beneficiaries.