Exiting Your Business, Protecting Your Wealth: A Strategic Guide for Owners and Their Advisors »

John M. Leonetti, CFP, CM&AA, is the owner of Pinnacle Equity Solutions, an exit strategies firm specializing in exit strategy design and execution services to advisors and their privately held business owners. In addition, he is the former owner of Beacon Hill Equity Group, an advisory business that provided comprehensive exit strategy planning and investment advisory services to high-net-worth business owners (he followed his own instructions in successfully exiting that business). He also teaches private finance to MBA students as an adjunct professor at Suffolk University; has been a financial consultant with Smith Barney; a financial advisor with Merrill Lynch Pierce, Fenner & Smith; a mergers and acquisitions associate; and a manager in his family business.

EXITING YOUR BUSINESS, PROTECTING YOUR WEALTH

Exiting your business is likely one of the most important financial events of your life. As a business owner or entrepreneur who is looking to protect the illiquid wealth that has accumulated in your privately held business, you will face a number of obstacles in developing and executing an exit strategy plan that suits your needs.

Written by John Leonetti—a business owner, attorney, wealth manager, merger and acquisition associate, and fellow exiting business owner in his own right—Exiting Your Business, Protecting Your Wealth will guide you in thoughtfully planning out your business's exit by illustrating your exit options as well as helping you analyze your financial and mental readiness for your business exit. Providing a simple, step-by-step process that you can start using right away, this savvy guide reveals how to:

• Set your exit goals
• Determine if there is a financial gap you need to worry about
• Decide if you are really ready to leave
• Tell you what type of exiting owner you are
• Illustrate your exit options
• Measure the "range of values" for your business
• Assemble your advisory team
• Understand how taxes, deal structuring, and legal agreements will impact your exit
• Establish a customized plan for your exit that protects your hard-earned wealth

An exit strategy is not the same as the sale of a business. This practical guide helps you understand the difference and offers a process that begins with examining your personal readiness for an exit and ways to protect your wealth, through building and executing a customized exit strategy plan. Easy to follow and essential for every business owner, Exiting Your Business, Protecting Your Wealth shows you a better way to establish an exit strategy plan that is aligned with what you would most like to achieve and in harmony with your goals.

I Preparing for your exit 7

1 Exiting is a process, not an event: don't limit your exit strategy planning with what you don't know 9

2 Setting your exit goals 40

3 Are you ready to leave?: the mental game of business exits 53

4 What type of exiting owner are you? 67

II Knowing your options 91

5 Selling the business 93

6 Private equity group recapitalization 110

7 Employee stock ownership plans as exit vehicles 120

8 Sale versus recapitalization versus ESOP 135

9 Management Buyouts 153

10 Gifting strategies for exiting business owners 168

III Planning your exit, protecting your wealth 183

11 Deal structuring and taxes: it's not what you get but what you keep that counts 185

12 Exit strategies and estate tax planning: protecting your wealth with some estate planning strategies 197

13 Legal agreements that you need to know: you will sign agreements; know them before you sign them 210

14 Forming an exit strategy advisory team: your agenda comes ahead of your advisors' 218

15 Pulling it all together 228

Index 237