Exit Planning for Small to Medium-Sized Businesses
Do you, as a business owner, have defined personal goals and a vision for the transfer of ownership of the business? If your answer is no, or if the vision is a little fuzzy, Summit Business Advisors can help to refine and focus the vision. We help to break down the exit planning process into manageable steps, and we help you to address the key questions that need to be answered to develop an exit plan with clear, meaningful goals. Some of these questions include:
- Have you considered the importance of family involvement in the leadership and ownership of the company?
- Have you identified and trained a successor?
- Are you currently using techniques to reduce or eliminate estate taxes?
- Have you considered alternative corporate structures or stock transfer techniques to help achieve succession goals?
- Are personal retirement savings sufficient to fund your retirement cash flow needs?
- Have you had the business valued recently?
Summit Business Advisors, Inc. can assist you in forming answers to these and other questions that should be considered in exit planning. We start at this point and continue with helping you to develop an understanding of the principal goals of a strong exit plan.
These goals typically include: maintaining the viability of the business during the exit process; meeting your own and your family's needs, as well as the needs of other possible stakeholders. Also, you may want to identify a chosen successor or, alternatively, to develop a strategy to sell to a third party; and, naturally, you would want to minimize the tax consequences of any type of transfer.
We also discuss with you the various options to be considered for transferring the ownership of the business, such as selling to a third party, management buy-out, giving to family members, selling to employees, etc. We can help you understand each of the options, including the advantages and disadvantages as well as the tax implications of each. In short, we help you formulate your own plan and decide on the path you want to take to meet your personal and financial goals.