Planning
As a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA), Jason Hughes is trained in helping business owners develop a formal exit strategy. Successful business transitions should begin years in advance:

• Appraise your business
• Fine-tune your business model
• Make sure that your company’s financial statements and tax and legal records are in order
• Examine your desired financial objectives

Understanding your options
Business owners and entrepreneurs have a number of potential opportunities when exiting a business. Our team offers extensive experience, resources and insight as you face this important decision. Your options may include:

• Outright sale to a buyer from the same industry or with a complimentary business model
• Selling the business to employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)
• Selling a minority or majority equity stake in the company for asset diversification and liquidity
• Transitioning ownership to family members, either as a sale or a gift

Timing
Understanding the right time to transition your business is an essential aspect of your exit strategy. Is your business expanding? Is it performing at its peak? Are big players in your industry stepping up their acquisitions? It’s important to monitor industry trends and business cycles to identify good timing for a sale.

Protecting the proceeds of your sale
Selling a business could result in one of the most significant liquidity transactions you’ll ever make. It’s important to establish pre-sale strategies around investment, philanthropy and estate and tax planning in order to properly manage your proceeds.

Giving where it does the greatest good
Like most successful households, you may be donating to charitable organizations you are care deeply about. But so-called “checkbook” philanthropy may not be the best way to maximize your impact. Through a variety of strategies, including family foundations, a gift made to a donor-advised fund or setting up college scholarship funds that can be added to annually, we can help you get the most from your charitable giving while potentially providing relief on your taxes.

Start an ongoing family conversation
Continuing, age-appropriate discussions about all aspects of your philanthropic strategy—from implementation to governance to ongoing oversight—can not only inform children about wealth issues and concerns, but ultimately lead to their becoming responsible stewards of family wealth. And working side-by-side in this way with your children may open the door to a lifetime of charitable engagement on the part of the next generation.

• Judging investments by their proper time horizon. In the short term, the daily ups and downs of markets can be challenging. We believe that the best measure of performance is a multi-year period that aligns with your long-term goals and objectives.
• A balanced asset allocation. No matter where investors live, they are often prone to what is called “home bias”— the tendency to hold the majority of one’s equity exposure in one’s home market. Although it feels good to invest close to home, international asset allocation can sometimes best address our clients’ needs and goals.
• A holistic view. Sometimes when individual assets underperform, clients are concerned. But when managing your investments to meet your family’s goals and objectives, we take a holistic view to ensure that all parts of an investment portfolio are working together. That’s why we meet with you regularly to review the entirety of your financial plan with a wide lens, to ensure it is structured as effectively as possible.