Exit Planning Tools for Business Owners

financial

The Dismal Ds and Exit Planning

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The “Dismal Ds” is an inside joke in exit planning. Every industry and profession has them. In some, it’s “You can have it done well, done fast, or done cheaply. Pick any two.” In planning it’s “Sooner or later, every owner exits his or her business… 100% guaranteed.”

Clearly, that refers to the unplanned but inevitable departure from the biggest D – Death. That isn’t the only D, however. There are others, NONE of which lead to a controlled, lucrative, or enjoyable transition. Most start with dis- defined as “dis– 1. a Latin prefix meaning “apart,” “asunder,” “away,” “utterly,” or having a privative, negative, or reversing force.”

The other Dismal Ds include:

  • Disease – the critical illness of the owner or an irreplaceable employee.
  • Dissension – between partners, shareholders, or family members
  • Disaster – Fire, flood, storm, or accident
  • Disability – An owner’s inability to oversee operations
  • Disinterest – of the founder or next-generation ownership
  • Distraction – When an owner’s focus is elsewhere. (frequently love or bar ownership)
  • Disarray – More simply, bad management
  • Dishonor – financial fraud or other skulduggery
  • Disenchantment – A fancy word for burnout
  • Divorce – a bitter fight over the business asset or its value
  • Debt – Leverage taken on in good times but no longer sustainable
  • Depression – Economic malaise (think hospitality in 2020.)
  • Defection– The poaching or bolting of a key employee, frequently in sales
  • Defenestration – Getting thrown from a window

(Okay, I may have gone too far with that last one, but I couldn’t resist.)

Planning – The Cure for the Dismal Ds

The point is, there are many ways of a forced exit from your business due to circumstances. Some might be beyond your control, but most can be avoided.

  • Disease – Have solid business continuity instructions in place
  • Dissension – Start with a good buy/sell or shareholders’ agreement that makes it plain how disagreements will be handled
  • Disaster – Fire, flood, storm, or accidents can be insured, including for loss of revenue.
  • Disability – Business continuity instructions again
  • Disinterest – Start implementing an exit plan before your business shows the effect. For example, in brokerage, we used to say “Show me an owner who says he is burned out, and I’ll show you financial statements that evidenced the problem three years ago.”
  • Distraction – Don’t buy a bar. Don’t buy another business. Don’t have an affair.
  • Disarray – Get help. Consulting, coaching and peer groups all work.
  • Dishonor – Have an outside party check your systems and security.
  • Disenchantment – See Disinterest
  • Divorce – Settle the value of the business first, preferably before the lawyers do it for you.
  • Debt – Limit your debt to half what your current cash flow can service.
  • Depression – If you have to cut expenses, do so deeply and quickly.
  • Defection– Two words- employment agreements
  • Defenestration – Stay away from the Departed, or Irish, Italian, and Jewish mobsters in general. Alternatively, live where there are only low-rise buildings.

Dismal DsI obviously have my tongue firmly planted in cheek for this column, but my point should be clear. Your business is probably the most valuable asset in your life. Losing it to unplanned events hurts. So even if you are no longer in the picture, you have some responsibility to your family, employees and customers.

A good exit plan, whether it’s for implementation now or years down the road, should take many, if not all of the Dismal Ds into account. All entrepreneurs want control over their future. That is why they are entrepreneurs. Planning isn’t merely an intellectual exercise. It’s all about control.

John F. Dini, CExP, CEPA is an exit planning coach and the President of MPN Incorporated in San Antonio Texas. He is the author of Your Exit Map: Navigating the Boomer Bust, and two other books on business ownership. If you want to see how prepared you are for transition, take the 15-minute Assessment at MPNInc.com/ExitMap. 

 

Protect Your Business with A Solid Continuity Plan

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The Need For A Solid Continuity Plan

A great characteristic of successful business owners is that they are optimistic people and will do what it takes to protect their business. They have a can-do attitude, setting their goals high, taking risks, hiring the right people, constantly striving to improve the delivery of their service or product, with a constant drive to build their entity into one of great significance.

As a result, building a successful company may give the owner great pride in their achievements and a strong sense of identity. That is normal human behavior. But because of that, the thought of an event that causes the owner to leave the business due to death or a disability is often never planned for and is overlooked. If such an event were to occur, it would not only jeopardize the value or even the survival of the business itself, especially if the business is heavily reliant on the owner or a key partner, but it also jeopardizes the future career paths of key employees and others, and leave customers scrambling to find somewhere else to go.

What Does It Take To Protect Your Business?

One thing is often on the minds of owners and advisors; how the family is taken care of through an unexpected death or disability. However, business continuity planning goes much further than that. A solid business continuity plan includes agreements, procedures, employee incentives, and safeguards that are put into place to help enable the business entity and all of its successors. This includes all key employees, vendors, operations, procedures, and customers. It helps the business continue on a successful path, with as little interruption as possible, if the owner/s is no longer present.

For instance, who will fill the slot of Chief Executive or Chief Operating Officer? Does the remaining management have a plan? Do they have financial resources available to search and bring in somebody from the outside to fill that position? Should they begin, now, to groom key employees for that role? How will the key vendors, creditors, and customers be handled? Will supplementary training need to take place? What will you tell the customers and the community to maintain confidence in the company during an unexpected death or disability? What plan will you put in place to entice the key employees to stay around and ensure the internal integrity of operations?

The reality within the marketplace is, if the business is left paralyzed and vulnerable, they risk losing key customers, creditors, and key employees who may be quickly recruited by competitors.

The Elements of a Solid Continuity Plan

The good news is that building a solid continuity plan is a required step within the exit planning process. It helps to build the value and marketability of the organization.

There are many areas that a continuity plan addresses and help protect your business. It includes the creation of a Buy-Sell Agreement, or amending or replacing one; the disposition of ownership interest, which is done through estate planning documents; insurance to fund the Buy-Sell Agreement; a management continuity reward program; retaining key employees after death or disability; a stay bonus plan; a process for terminating personal guarantees for business obligations, business continuity instructions; and a Buy-Back agreement for minority owners. There are other potential areas to address, but these are the likely critical areas.

Key Documentation

Buy-Sell Agreement – This document is created to summarize the terms of the written agreement that will govern the ownership transfer and ownership rights aspects of the ownership interest of the primary owner/s and other members of the controlling interest group. This document also covers the issues related to the rights and responsibilities of the parties to the agreement.

Disposition of Ownership Interest Through Estate Planning Documents – Estate Planning documents summarize the intentions and issues that are most important to the owner if he/she dies while holding the ownership interest in the company. This is carried over into the continuity plan and is created within the personal estate planning documents.

Insurance to Fund A Buy-Sell Agreement – The purpose of this exercise is to recommend and select the appropriate type of life and disability insurance related to the purchase/sale of the owner’s interest in the company. Proceeds from these policies are used to purchase the ownership interest.

Management Continuity Reward Program – This is to address the benefits that the owner intends to provide to the individuals who take over the management responsibilities if the owner should die or become disabled, and is unable to perform the regular responsibilities.

Retaining Key Employees After Death or Disability – This is the section of the plan that addresses the steps to retain key employees. This is not intended to include incentive and reward planning for key employees, which is more properly addressed in a separate component of the overall planning. Instead, attention is given to the particular issues relevant to the key employee retention when a majority or controlling owner is unexpectedly absent from the company. This section is intended to assist the successor management staff. It also allows them to concentrate on the continued success of the company and protect your business.

Stay Bonus Plan – Develop a written agreement that would become effective upon the owner’s death or disability. The Stay Bonus Plan acknowledges the indispensable employees remaining with the company should such an event occur. The plan provides confidence and support to specific employees who choose to remain with the company and provides substantial financial reward for them doing so.

Terminating Personal Guarantees for Business Obligations – This is a stipulation of steps to be taken to protect the company if the owner’s personal financial resources are no longer available to support the financial activities of the business. In the event of death or disability, the company relationships may require that the business demonstrate financial stability to continue their relationship.

Business Continuity Instructions – Business continuity instructions are written instructions that are completed, signed, and stored with other important personal documents related to the owner’s death or disability.

Buy-Back Agreement for Minority Owners – The purpose of developing this agreement is to state the situations in which an employee owner’s interest will be purchased by you or the company in specific situations that may arise. It also governs the employee’s ownership interest while he or she is an owner. It addresses certain rights and responsibilities associated with the ownership status and other terms related to ownership.

 

Work Flow Diagram

Over the years my staff and I have developed a work flow diagram to help the owner understand how we can approach the development of a Business Continuity Plan. Although, every situation is different, it gives you a general idea of how it may come together.

Protect Your Business

The bottom line is, a solid Continuity Plan is critical for you, as a business owner, to develop and maintain, to help ensure that your business, which you and your staff have worked so hard to build, maintains its integrity and success if something should happen to you.

Steven Zeller is a Certified Business Exit Planner, Certified Financial Planner, Accredited Investment Fiduciary, and Co-Founder and President of Zeller Kern Wealth Advisors. He advises business owners and develops exit plans, increases business value, employee retention, executive bonus plans, etc. He can be reached at szeller@zellerkern.com  

 

EBITDAC : What is Your Business Worth Now?

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Several friends have sent me a picture of an EBITDAC coffee mug this week. As it states, EBITDAC stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortization and Coronavirus. Will this be the new measure of cash flow for valuing your business?

EBITDACA bleak joke, but one that is on the minds of many business owners, especially Baby Boomers in their late 50s and 60s. Many were postponing their exit planning because business has been so good. As one client told me, “In March we had the best year in the history of my company. It looks like April might be the worst.”

Downturns aren’t new, and recent history has more “Black Swan” downturns than most. Boomer owners have lived through the dot-com crash, 9-11, and the financial/housing bust. Even the Great Recession, however, was when most Boomers were in their mid-40s to early 60s. Most had ample time to recover, and to resume their business-building activities.

This downturn hits 4,000,000 Boomer owners when the youngest is at least 55 years old. The recovery time is uncertain, and regulatory restrictions on their businesses may be reimposed, perhaps more than once.

Factoring the Coronavirus in Valuations

Most Main Street acquisitions (under $3,000,000) rely on financial results over the previous five years for valuation. Those years have generally been good. In the middle market, professional buyers’ due diligence requests often seek results from 2008-2009 as an indicator of a business’s resilience in a contracting economy.

I think we can safely assume that both Main Street and mid-market acquirers will be carefully looking at the sustainability of your business through COVID-19. How much it affects your company’s valuation will depend largely on what type of business you own, and how you reacted to both any shutdown and the period immediately following.

One issue will be how buyers perceive the impact of Paycheck Protection Program loans and their forgiveness. It appears at the moment that the PPP loans will not be considered taxable income when forgiven. There are IRS rules for non-taxable loan forgiveness, but it will likely still appear as additional margin on your books. (The expenses it paid will still be deductible.)

You can be certain that buyers will be backing out the PPP loan forgiveness when valuing your business. They won’t be very interested in paying multiples of a one-time “free money” event.

EBITDAC : Short and Long Term Impact

Some businesses will see an immediate effect on their selling prices. Others may have a lingering change in how buyers look at their worth.

First, buyers will look at the scope of the coronavirus’ impact. Restaurants, caterers, event support, transportation (airlines, rental cars, party buses) and other hospitality related industries will be the worst. Not only are they the most affected, but they face the possibility that they resume with limitations on their business (social distancing in restaurants or limited passengers in vehicles, for example.) Any buyer would have to anticipate another period where they can’t generate substantial, or any, revenue.

If a business like those survives the shutdown, finding a buyer will be challenging. Third-party lenders will shy away from any involvement. Cash flow will remain tight, and credit will be harder to find.

The good news for those businesses is that the virus will end. When it is no longer a threat (presumably either because we find a vaccine, or we build herd immunity after a couple of seasons,) valuations should return to something more normal.

Other businesses will see valuations change over a longer period of time, and for different  reasons. They will be judged either by their ability to recover quickly, or by how their model changes to take advantage of life after the virus.

Regardless of the impact, some owners will use the pandemic as an excuse for years to come. Others will adjust and move forward. (See my description of an owner who was still blaming the Great Recession a decade later here.)

Planning for Your Comeback

Whether your business is essential and working much like before the pandemic, or non-essential but functioning pretty well remotely. this virus is going to change your strategy.

For an obvious example, lets take video conferencing. How are you preparing your sales team for the return to normal? Will they be more efficient? Are they able to cold call? Should their expense accounts be lower? Or are they (and you) just waiting to go back to what they did before?

If you are a manufacturer or a contractor, perhaps your business has been very healthy during this lock-down. What will happen afterwards? Will new competitors push into your market to replace business that they lost? Might some customers fade away, while others discover a newfound need for your offerings?

If you are surviving, how can you thrive? Do you expect landlords with empty space to negotiate cheaper rents? Will some skilled employees be looking for new jobs? Should others become pricier because of increased demand for their skills? Can the automation you implemented for remote work be extended to new efficiencies or new opportunities?

EBITDAC and Post-Coronavirus Exit Planning

If you were anticipating retirement before the pandemic, are you accelerating your plans or putting them on hold for a while longer?

In either case, you’ll need to understand the impact of the virus on your company’s value. EBITDAC 2It may be dramatic and immediate, or it may be only obvious afterwards when your performance is matched against that of your peers.

The definition of a Black Swan is “An unpredictable or unforeseen event, typically one with extreme consequences.” COVID-19 certainly fits the definition. It already has extreme consequences, but many of those are yet to come.

It’s not hard to figure out. Those who plan for a different world will do better than those who are taken by surprise. In either case, the impact of the “C” in EBITDAC will greatly influence any value generated by your transition from your business.

John F. Dini, CExP, CEPA is an exit planning coach and the President of MPN Incorporated in San Antonio Texas. He is the publisher of Awake at 2 o’clock, and has authored three books on business ownership.

Baby Boomers’ Influence – Still Strong

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There is ample evidence in the marketplace that Baby Boomers’ influence is still powerful. From walk-in tubs to stand-up bikes, and from pharmaceutical commercials to river cruises, Boomer tastes are catered to in every market.

We all know the sterotypes of the “typical” Boomer. Goal oriented, workaholic, spendthrift, and oriented towards accumulating material evidence of their achievements. They identify work and position with their value in society. We have also discussed often in this space the issues of employers who have to replace the corporate knowledge base of retiring Boomers.

Clearly, one way to keep the economy moving upwards is to encourage Boomers to work longer and accumulate more. The more they earn, and the more they spend, the better we all fare. (Except, of course, for the Gen Xers who are behind them in the promotion queue.)

Boomers Influence Legislation

One really obvious example of this is the SECURE (Setting Every Community Up For Retirement Enhancement) Act, which took effect on January 1, 2020. It was missed by many, gliding through as a budget attachement, and absent the histrionics that seem to accompany any legislation in Congress.

What could be so important and universally desirable that both parties would happily cooperate? Getting the Boomers to work longer. How do you accomplish that? Give them the opportunity to accumulate even more than the $17 Trillion (one year’s GDP) that they already hold in personal assets.

The SECURE Act is aptly (if somewhat elaborately) titled. Boomers who are more financially sound will be less of a burden on the public sector. That’s the Community benefit referred to in the title. In addition, as Social Security feels the pinch of paying back those who funded the first two generations of beneficiaries, it theoretically will reduce the outcry when benefits are reduced.

The New Terms of Retirement

The act doesn’t provide Boomers with additional benefits. Instead, it gives them the chance to pay more into the system. Here are the major changes.

  • The age at which you must start taking Required Minimum Benefits from your employer or individual retirement plans has been raised from 70 1/2 to 72 years old. (Social Security benefits, however, still max out at age 70- even though you would still have to make SS contributions.)
  • You can continue to pay into your retirement plan of any type for as long as you want- there is no longer a cutoff age for contributions.
  • Small business owners may now group together to offer retirement plans. Formerly, many were too small to bear the costs of having a 401K, for example.
  • Part time employees (read: semi-retired Boomers) can now participate in employer retirement plans.
  • Employer plans may now offer annuities for lifetime income among their options.
  • Inherited retirement accounts must be spent in ten years- they cannot be rolled to another generation.

Are you getting the message? We’d like you to to work longer, pay more in taxes, and (at least theoretically) leave more behind when you go.

Why is this indicative of the Boomers, influence? Because that’s exactly what we seek. With health care, exercise and nutrition so much better than for previous generations, we were saying that 60 is the new 40. Now we are saying that 70 is the new 50.

No one is forcing us to work longer. They are just recognizing that many of us want to. C’mon Boomers, you fueled the longest sustained expansion is US history (40 years from 1968-2008.) Can’t you do just a little bit more?

John F. Dini, CExP, CEPA is an exit planning coach and the President of MPN Incorporated in San Antonio Texas. He is the publisher of Awake at 2 o’clock, and has authored three books on business ownership.

Family Succession: Exiting a Small Business Part 3

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It’s time to discuss family succession. In Part One of this series we looked at exit strategies that aren’t really available to small businesses, and in Part Two we discussed selling to a third party. Now let’s talk about the issues when transferring to a family member or members.

Which Kids?

When passing the business to family, often the primary issue is inheritance. Small business owners frequently have 50%, 60% or as much as 80% of their personal net worth in their company. There is a temptation to treat the business like any other personal asset, and divide it among all the children.
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“After all,” (the logic goes,) “We built this for our family’s security. It isn’t fair that only the kids who work in the business should benefit.”Sometimes the non-active children have succeeded in lucrative careers, like medicine or law. That may make an asymmetrical legacy easier.

Other times the children outside the business have not been successful at all. They are the ones who most need support, and in fact may be on the payroll already (although not “active” in any meaningful sense.) Parents’ expect the same unconditional love they have for them from their siblings, but it just doesn’t work that way.

Splitting it “Fairly”

When the company is too valuable an asset to balance inheritance with other assets, we recommend passing some to the active children before your death. That can be via sale, bonus or gifting, but it recognizes the active children’s contribution to the business.

Upon death, you can divide the balance of the equity evenly, but with a contract that says the non-active children must immediately sell their shares to the active ones at Fair Market Value. This accomplishes several things:

  1. The value of the business at the parents’ death  is divided “evenly.”
  2. The non-active kids get the step-up in basis, and should have no tax on the sale.
  3. The active kids retain 100% of the benefits from their efforts going forward.

Its especially important to get spouse signatures on these agreements. Valuations and agreements between family are fine, but an outsider (especially an ex-spouse) may not be as amenable.

I have a comment that I use with parents who are deciding how to divide ownership among children. “In the long run, you want everyone to still have a nice Thanksgiving together.”

Securing Family Succession

This is the other big issue. The parent wants family ownership to be their legacy, but their child or children aren’t qualified to run it. There is capable management, but none of them have the same last name.

Remember, we are talking about small business in this series. Families named Cargill, Ford or Walton need not be too concerned  about non-family management.

But for a small company, you can’t put children in a position where the resignation of a key employee could sink the whole enterprise. That makes the children subject to blackmail. Key operating skills have to be retained with incentives.

You don’t need to make key employees into partners, but they should have a vested interest in growth and profitability. This can be as simple as bonuses for company performance, but long-term retention usually requires non-qualifed deferred compensation (NQDC) plans.

These are tied to the long-term growth and profitability of the business. “Non-qualified” simply means it isn’t an ERISA-qualified benefit (like an IRA or 401K) because it is discriminatory in nature.

There are a number of forms for NQDC, mostly involving virtual equity. Phantom stock, stiock options, stock appreciation rights and warrants are all avenues for such compensation. They allow an employee to amass an increasing nest egg over time, based on tenure and appreciation in the value of the business.

Da Plan! Da Plan!

Whether you are deciding how to apportion the business for your estate, securing continuation of a management team, or just minimizing taxes on the transfer, planning is the key. Determining your goals for family succession and working through your options well in advance (5 years or more before your planned retirement,) is the secret for the successful transfer of a family business.

Without planning, you are putting Thanksgiving at risk.

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