Stepping back or selling

You get one exit, and no practice run.

Whether you are handing the business to family, selling to a third party, or simply winding down, the decisions that matter are made years before the day itself.

Book a first meeting ↓ More for business owners

From 55 when retirement relief on a disposal may become available

Five years the lead time most reliefs and improvements need

One question not what it is worth, but what you need it to be worth

Home / Stepping back or selling

Finnegan Maguire Financial Advisors

Five years out is a good time to sit down.

We work out what you need the business to deliver, what is already in your own name, and what the gap means for timing.

Book a first meeting

From 55 When retirement relief on a disposal may become available.

Lead time Five years

Structure Decides reliefs

Pension Fund it early

The starting point

The question underneath all of it

Not what the business is worth. What you need it to be worth.

Those are completely different questions and only one of them is in your control. If you know what you need to live on after you step back, and you know what you already have outside the business, then you know what the sale actually has to deliver. Plenty of owners discover late that it needs to deliver less than they feared, and some discover it needs to deliver considerably more.

Three routes out

01Sell to a third party. Usually the largest cash sum, and usually the most preparation. Buyers pay for clean accounts, a business that does not depend entirely on you, and contracts that transfer.

02Pass it to family. Emotionally harder and technically different. Reliefs may be available on both sides, but they come with conditions and timing requirements.

03Wind down. Sometimes the right answer for a business built entirely around one person. It needs planning too, particularly around extracting what is left efficiently.

Reliefs worth knowing exist

We are not tax advisers and your accountant will lead on these, but you should know they exist, because several have conditions that must be satisfied for years beforehand. Retirement relief may become available from 55, several reliefs require assets to have been held for a minimum period, and how the business is owned can decide what applies at all.

Why five years out is the moment

Almost every relief and every valuation improvement needs lead time. Restructuring shareholdings, getting the accounts into shape, reducing the dependence on you personally, making sure contributions have been made while the company was profitable. None of it can be done in the last few months, and the last few months is when most people first ring an adviser.

What to watch out for

01A business that depends entirely on you is worth less. Buyers discount heavily for it. Reducing that dependence is the highest-return work you can do before a sale.

02Do not leave the pension until the sale. Contributions made by the company while it is profitable are one of the most efficient ways of getting value out, and that window closes when the business does.

03Think about what comes after. A lot of owners plan the transaction in detail and give no thought at all to what they will do on the Monday. It matters more than people expect.

04Talk to your spouse early. The timing, the money and the life afterwards all affect two people.

Book a call

Pick a date and time that suits you.

No sales pitch, just a conversation about what you already have, what it is heading for and whether we can improve it. You will get a written summary either way.

Cian O’Sullivan Director and Financial Adviser, Finnegan Maguire

30 minutes Phone or video call, no charge

Rather just ring? Call 0818 44 55 66 or email go@splash.ie

What we advise on