Getting into business is relatively easy. Getting out can be very difficult, particularly if you have business partners and haven’t agreed on how an exit will work.
A lot of people think business succession planning is all about ‘expensive’ life insurance. While life insurance certainly helps in cases of an unexpected life event, there’s more to an effective plan.
An effective business succession solution starts with a clear understanding of what might get in the way of the smooth running of your business if you’re no longer around – and then making clear plans for such an event.
There are the obvious events that may cause you to be absent from your business, like disability, sickness and death. But there are also the less obvious, and more likely events, such as a disagreement about your business’ direction, retirement of your business partner, or your business partner going through a divorce.
How we can help
We can assist you in the following ways:
- Upfront Exit Strategy – right at the beginning of your involvement in a business we can help you turn your mind to the future and put the foundations in place for a smooth exit.
- Exit Plan Review – a little like a fire drill and useful at any stage of your business venture, we will look at your current situation, run through some possible scenarios and test how robust your strategy really is.
- Exit Action! – now that you have the plan, lets put it into action!
Upfront Exit Strategy
If you are starting a business, it might seem a little premature or pessimistic to be thinking about your exit plan, but in our experience, this is the best time to get your plan in place. It can avoid costly and stressful disputes down the track. We can help you:
- Identify and establish the most appropriate trading structure that will provide you with the best options if you wish or need to leave the business.
- Review your personal Estate Plan and assist you ensure it fits in with your business activities. Click here to read more about our Estate Planning services.
- Ensure your arrangements with your business partners provide a clear direction if one of you wishes to exit. This may include the preparation of a Partnership Agreement, Shareholders’ Agreement, tailored Company Constitution, Unit Holders’ Agreement, Joint Venture Agreement, Co-Ownership Agreement or a stand-alone Buy Sell Agreement.
Exit Plan Review
An Exit Plan Review is for anyone in business, at any stage of their business venture. Our Exit Plan Review is a little like a fire drill. We will look at your current situation, run through some possible scenarios and test how robust your strategy really is.
We can then help you to put an appropriate plan in place to ensure you get the most value out of the hard work you are putting into your business today.
Our review involves:
- Identifying steps that you can put in place now to increase the overall value of your business, if the future sale of your business is a potential option.
- Making changes to your personal Estate Plan to make sure that it aligns with your commercial objectives. Click here to read more about our Estate Planning services.
- Reviewing or establishing written agreements with your business partners. This may include the preparation of a Partnership Agreement, Shareholders’ Agreement, tailored Company Constitution, Unit Holders’ Agreement, Joint Venture Agreement, Co-Ownership Agreement or a stand-alone Buy Sell Agreement.
Exit Plan. Action!
If you’ve made the decision to leave your business, we can help you through the transition, helping you to tie up loose ends and most importantly, get the value you deserve.
We can help you to:
- Decide on the best exit strategy to suit your current goals, whether that be getting your business ready for sale or exploring other options such as passing your business onto the next generation in your family, an internal restructure, sale of assets or closing down the business.
- Implement your chosen strategy by participating in negotiations, preparing key legal documents to record the terms of your exit (such as Business Sale Agreements, Share & Unit Sale Agreements) and then step you through the process of finalising the formalities of your exit, including attendance on settlement and post settlement matters.
On the other hand, if your business partner has decided to leave, but you are remaining in the business, we can also assist to facilitate their exit, with a focus on maintaining the value in your business.
We measure our success on how effectively we have assisted you to achieve a smooth transition and helped you to realise value for your hard work.
Call us on 1300 654 590 or email us to put your Business Succession Plan into action!
