The situation

Our client, an industry pioneer in his 40s with a young family, founded and sold his successful B2B digital media company. He was 12-16 months away from exiting his current company, which was growing fast.

The goals

• Transfer a significant portion of the company shares to a family legacy trust for his children
• Benefit from any tax-mitigation opportunities
• Generate $1 million in pre-tax income from his post-sale after-tax proceeds

The approach

We designed a pre-liquidity founder’s plan to help our client achieve his three goals:

• Worked with our Senior Wealth Strategies to simulate “what if” liquidity scenarios
• Delivered our client’s Personal Outcome Statement that assessed the likelihood of his achieving his family’s three goals through early planning
• Discussed the pros and cons of the different strategies we presented to help make informed decisions
• Facilitated our client’s choice to transfer to the family trust a significant portion of his founders shares at a large discount to what he believed the ultimate sale valuation would be
• Recommended the Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) planning strategy that helped protect his shares from capital gains taxes
• Presented an investment portfolio designed to achieve his $1 milllion pretax income goal

The results

• The pre-liquidity plan gave our client confidence that he was on track to meet his goals.
• He was then able to focus 100% on maximizing his company’s EBITDA targets.
• Discussed the pros and cons of the different strategies we presented to help make informed decisions
• He sold to a private equity firm for $100 million+ at a favorable valuation.
• He achieved a significant tax savings and created his family’s legacy trust.

With the economy so strong, this may be the right time for you to cash out of your company.

We can help ensure you have the strategy you need to exit successfully.

Call us to begin that important conversation.
212-821-7023