Business Owners Planning Their Exit – How Much Money Do I Need?

Welcome to our series of articles dedicated to exploring the benefits for business owners of working with financial planners. As a firm, we excel in offering comprehensive financial planning advice to business owners, seamlessly integrating our services with our Corporate team to deliver a multitude of benefits to our clients.

In our experience, business owners are often deeply engrossed in the intricate details of their business operations and have a clear vision for their business’s future. However, when it comes to their personal financial plans or details about their policies and investments, they often lack clarity. Many have the hope that the eventual sale of their business will suffice for a comfortable retirement without knowing what that retirement might look like or costs.

While the passion for their business and the drive to succeed are completely necessary for success we can help translate this success into a tangible future for owners and their families while avoiding or mitigating many of the risks along the way. This series aims to shed light on how working with financial planners like us can help business owners align their business objectives with their personal financial goals, please get in touch to discuss your situation and see how we might be able to help you.

In Part 1 we consider – What’s it all for? What’s my number?

While the challenge of the business itself can motivate some people it also needs to provide money to fund you and your family’s desired lifestyle both now and when you stop working in the future.

Firstly, it’s essential to define what your desired lifestyle looks like. Is it a luxurious villa by the beach, annual family vacations, or simply the ability to retire comfortably, what does it mean for you? Once you’ve outlined your goals, we can start to quantify them. The financial planning process looks to identify your goals, and consider your current situation before building and implementing a plan of how to get there that can be regularly reviewed to ensure you stay on track.

We use a variety of tools and calculations to put actual numbers on your goals in today’s money taking account of growth, inflation, and taxes so we can find out your number, and what you need to be able to live your desired lifestyle without ever running out of money.

Click to enlarge
(Source: abrdn Investments)

When you know your number you have a goal that you can plan towards, whether this is to generate the funds through a clean 3^rd party sale, management buy-out or family succession, we can show you the value you need to achieve in a one-off sale of series of payments to get where you want to be. You may already have enough and can retire sooner than you thought and avoid years of stress, working to grow a business to generate funds that you and your family don’t even need. Even if you are not on track, it can be better to know and do something about it sooner rather than later.