BUSINESS SUCCESSION
For long-established businesses, succession plans become important when old owners and leaders retire from their role. At Ramsden Lawyers, our business succession lawyers are experts in helping you identify new leaders and assist you in making the transition into or out from a leadership position.
MAINTAINING BUSINESS HEALTH THROUGH TRANSITIONS
Australia’s ageing population means that there is an entire generation faced with the prospect of planning their business exits. Our team of business lawyers are ideally situated on the Gold Coast to provide you with the necessary expertise and guidance to ensure the ongoing health of businesses that would otherwise fall into liquidation because of a lack of proper succession planning or the impact of inheritance taxes.
We provide clients with appropriate exit plans to enable a successful exit strategy while taking into account the unique features of their personal situation. If you are intending to rely on the sale of your business to facilitate your retirement, it is essential that you consult specialist help sooner rather than later to ensure appropriate groundwork has been laid to facilitate an orderly exit from your business.
EXPERIENCED IN MANAGEMENT BUYOUTS
Where an outside buyer is unavailable or in any event undesirable, our team can represent you on either side of a management buyout. Management buyouts are ideal options where there is an appropriate successor within the business who can both provide a favourable exit settlement as well as benefit from increased authority to operate a business they already understand.
However, attention must always be paid to ongoing directors duties under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) to act in the best interests of the company (amongst other obligations).
Internal buyers are also better positioned to understand the unique competitive advantages and challenges that a particular enterprise may have. We assist our clients in selecting members of the management team, establishing the terms of the buyout and obtaining board approval as well as conducting due diligence and executing all formal documentation.
PRIVATE EQUITY BUYERS AND EARN OUTS
In other circumstances a client may wish to have their business sold to a financial investor. A financial investor buyout offers a flexible alternative that allows sellers to withdraw all or part of their equity depending on what stage of exiting the business they currently face.
Our Gold Coast business lawyers are also experienced in drafting earn-out agreements to weight the risk of a succession transaction in a way amenable to both parties. It is a way of ensuring the ongoing performance of a business leading up to the completion of the sale. They are especially useful where the parties to a transaction return different valuations of a company that must be reconciled to enable an exit strategy to unfold.
We assist clients in ensuring that realistic and achievable benchmarks are set to facilitate an exit and can mold agreements to unique circumstances due to our capacity for expert drafting.
CONTACT US TODAY
OUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE INCLUDE:
- Trade sales
- Management buyouts
- Private equity
- Due diligence
- Drafting agreements
- Earn out agreements
- Directors duties
- Selecting and vetting potential successors
Please do not hesitate to contact our team to arrange a consultation with one of our lawyers.
