It’s never too early to think about the end game and your exit plan

If you’ve worked long and hard on building up your business, shouldering the risks and feeling the weight of various demands, you want to be sure that when you finally take the step of leaving the business (whether voluntarily or involuntarily), you have a strategy that will deliver the most value for your hard work.  It’s never too early to think about your ‘Business Succession Plan’.

The foundations you put in place now with a well-considered Business Succession Plan can pay dividends later.

Call us on 1300 654 590 to discuss how we can help you in developing your Business Succession Plan.

How we can help you

Having a well-considered Business Succession Plan starts from the moment you first begin your involvement in a business, and should be regularly reviewed as situations change.

A lot of people think these issues come down to ‘expensive’ life insurance. But that’s not necessarily the case. The solution starts with a clear understanding of what might happen, and what you will do about it if it does. There are the obvious events, 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.

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 Plan. 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 by:

• Identifying and establishing the most appropriate trading structure that will provide you with the best options if you wish to leave the business.
• Reviewing your personal Estate Plan and assisting you to ensure that it fits in with your business activities.  Click here to read more about our Estate Planning services.
• Ensuring your arrangements with your business partners provide a clear direction in the event that 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 that you get the most value out of the hard work you are putting into your business today.  This might involve:

• 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 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 that 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 to put your Business Succession Plan into action!

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