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Business Succession

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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.

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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.

Experts in Trade Sale Exits

In situations where you know there are other business or industry competitors looking to make acquisitions, a trade sale offers business owners the opportunity to exit with certainty. Oftentimes outside buyers are more reliable in obtaining finance and more likely to pay higher premiums for a business than an internal buyer.

Ramsden Lawyers frequently assists Gold Coast businesses in what can typically be a protracted and lengthy process without the right experts to conduct due diligence on the proposed transaction. Our business succession lawyers are well-versed in the execution of both share sale agreements and business asset sales and can provide advice on the best option based on our commercial understanding of your business.

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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.

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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 – Contact us today!

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What Our Clients Say

"After many years as a client with Ramsden Lawyers, our family find them very professional at what they do. All the staff are very friendly and are committed in their work."

- Adrian Z. | Gold Coast

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