The three years before you retire
Preparing for retirement takes longer than eighteen months. How long each part of the preparation takes, from the client files to agreeing terms.
Preparing for retirement takes longer than eighteen months. How long each part of the preparation takes, from the client files to agreeing terms.
A principal in their early sixties may plan to stop in three to five years and intend to start preparing when the date is closer.
The work that affects the outcome takes longer than that.
one to two years. One review cycle makes contact and the next shows the cycle is running.
about two years, for the same reason. A client needs to have met that person twice.
a year per client, done as three joint meetings. The handovers cannot all run at once.
months. This is the only item on the list that spending money can shorten.
weeks if the basis was settled earlier, and months if it was not.
Added together, these make a three-year plan tight and a five-year plan comfortable. An eighteen-month plan leaves time for a sale and little preparation, and the price will reflect that.
You may not want to commit to anything years before you need to, because your plans might change.
The commitment and the work can be separated. Getting the files in order, putting a second name on relationships and reducing what depends on you personally improve a firm whether or not it is ever sold. They make the business more valuable and more resilient, and easier to run.
If you decide at sixty-six that you want to carry on, the work still stands. You keep the improved business and the exit option remains unused.
Your firm may have households below the level at which a servicing model pays for itself. Ask a buyer what will happen to them.
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A successor may already work at your firm. Internal succession most often fails because the successor cannot raise the money.
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The same multiple can produce different amounts of money depending on what it is applied to, when it is paid and what conditions attach.
Read itSteven Bates, Director of Advisory at Equity & General, takes the first call with every adviser. Ring him on 020 8396 0486 or send a short note about your firm.