Approaching Retirement

Owner manager aged 60 had built a successful company specialising in the import and wholesale supply to the forestry and horticultural sector. The client wanted to exit the business and in turn realise sufficient capital to fund his retirement. The opportunity was referred to us by a firm of local accountants who looked after the client’s compliance affairs but did not have a specialist corporate finance department to advise on business sales.

Client Objectives

• Maximise the proceeds from the sale of the business whilst minimising tax liabilities
• Extract £650,000 of cash from the company as tax efficiently as possible
• Protect the position of the company’s staff, many of whom were long serving employees

What we did

• Carried out a pre sale review of the business to ensure that the any issues regarding structure or performance of the business were highlighted and addressed early in order to make the business an attractive proposition to potential purchasers
• Worked closely with tax colleagues to minimise the client’s current and future tax liabilities
• Identified and approached businesses in the same and aligned sectors that may have an interest in acquiring the company
• Marketed the business to our network of other accountants and professionals in order to identify potential purchasers
• Carried out negotiations with interested parties
• Worked closely with the company’s external accountants and solicitors to ensure that the transaction proceeded as efficiently as possible
• Project managed the transaction through to completion
• Introduced financial planning consultants who provided clear explanation of retirement income options and were able to set up an income producing retirement plan based on the client’s requirements and attitude to investment risk

Results

• Generated sales proceeds of £1.8m
• Facilitated the extraction of the cash in the company that saved the client £100,000 in income tax
• The business was sold to a very successful local company which ensured that the jobs of the existing staff were safeguarded