EXIT PLANNING
Advisory for Multigenerational Family Enterprises
When the time comes to step away, do you know what you're preserving, and what you're letting go?
Glenn R. Ayres, an American trust and estate planning attorney and pioneering family business consultant whose work emphasised reconciliation over adversarial settlement, proposed that succession and exit be structured around two questions:
NEED:
What does the senior generation actually need in income, lifestyle, and legacy provision to leave confidently?
ABILITY TO PAY:
What can the business honestly afford to provide while still growing under new leadership?
If you are weighing a sale, a generational transfer, or a partial liquidity event, and the financial mechanics are the part you understand best, the work begins with what comes before the deal and what comes after.
This is not theoretical knowledge. The transitions from one generation to another within the Dickinson Group of Companies didn’t apply this Ayers’ framework. As a result, these transitions were, in a significant measure, a recapitalisation exercise conducted as an obligation under continuous pressure. In addition, I’m currently planning the sale of the 115-year-old family enterprise.
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What they are leaving
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What they are preserving
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What they are making possible
Together, my clients and I address not only the financial and structural mechanics of a sale or transfer, but the identity questions every departing principal must eventually face:
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Who am I without this business
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What comes next
My exit planning advisory and mentoring service helps family business owners think clearly about:
It’s important for my clients to realise the exit planning advisory and mentoring service I provide is more than just a theoretical concept I’ve created.
It is an earned experience by a practitioner who understands exit planning failure potential from the inside, and whose goal is to ensure that your exit planning is a success for the family and business alike.
– TREVOR DICKINSON