On May 10th, 2022 attorney Jon Schindel gave a presentation to his peers entitled: Family Business Succession: Exploring Benefits, Challenges and Strategies.
The presentation focused on the details of a transaction where the older generation of business
owners want to transition their ownership to the next generation. The content covered a range of
topics including:
• Understanding the goals of each generation;
• Creation of a high-level plan and explaining it to the owners in non-legalese;
• Mitigating risk for the older generation when that generation provides the internal
financing to the younger generation;
• Ideas for early payoff by the younger generation based on the company’s financial
metrics;
• Gifting options for the older generation and the tax considerations surrounding gifts of
ownership;
• Strategies to allow the older generation to continue to control certain fundamental
decisions about the company (sale of assets, borrowing, adding owners, etc) while that
generation is being paid off;
• Updating of buy-sell provisions to fit the new scenario where the younger generation
owns the company and is still paying off debt to the older generation;
• The importance of maintaining accurate records of ownership through the transition
process.
The presentation was attended by approximately 60 attorneys who participated both in-person
and online.