Business Succession Planning: Transferring a Family Business
Serving Clients on Cape Cod, Plymouth and Southeastern Massachusetts
The planning element in every family-owned business can mean the difference between its success or failure during the transfer process. The retirement, disability or death of the business owner are all common events that can trigger a business transfer.
Tough questions must be asked and answered. Otherwise, a business that took decades to build can be destroyed overnight.
For example, who will run the business after you? Will it be your spouse, one of your children or a non-family member key employee? If your spouse will not run the business, will he or she still be financially dependent on it… or can you make arrangements to ensure they are financially independent of it?
What arrangements have you made for the inheritance of your children who are not active in the business? Have you in-law proofed your estate?
Thinking ahead to the second-generation transfer of your business, what provisions have you made to encourage thrift and industry among your grandchildren?
McManus Estate Planning LLC works with business owners to draft business succession plans. We want to help each business owner ensure that the family business, which she or he spent so much time and effort to build, will pass to the appropriate people when the time comes.
Buy-sell agreements, stock redemption agreements, and business-continuation agreements are common documents in this field. We typically recommend a review of existing contracts, employment agreements, non-compete contracts, and the structure of the business itself.
Business transfer plans set the structure and provide terms for the disposition of a business in the event of the owner’s withdrawal from the business, retirement, disability, or death. McManus Estate Planning LLC will work with the business owner’s independent business, tax, and financial advisors so that the succession plan meshes with the owner’s estate.
If you own a business and do not have a plan to transfer your business, contact McManus Estate Planning LLC to create one.
