The Most Important Transaction of Your Life
Are you a business owner thinking about business succession? Are you concerned about leaving a mess for your spouse and your estate administrator? Do you consider yourself the steward of your family assets? Do you feel responsibility for all your constituencies – your family, your employees, your employees’ families, your clients and customers? Then I can assure you of the sense of relief you will have when your business succession plan is in place.
There are three main options that you should consider. Then you should consider how prepared are you to undertake any of those options with minimal risk and maximum chance of success.

Sales to Co-Owners
If sales to your co-owners is your most likely succession plan, are you prepared for the departure of a co-owner? Do you even have a Buy-Sell Agreement? If you do have one, how long ago was it created?

Sales to Employees
If selling to your key employees or junior associates is your best succession plan, do you have any idea how to accomplish that with minimal risk to yourself, while also structuring the sale so your successors can afford it?

Sales to Outsiders (M&A)
If a sale to outside third parties is your plan, have you done everything you can to optimize your business and its assets to achieve highest value? Are you and your advisors prepared for a sale?
Practice Areas
Transaction Highlights
In my career, I have been involved in an extensive amount of business purchase and sale transactions, ranging in size from $60,000 to $27,000,000… Read More
Testimonials
John represented us in the sale of a small manufacturing company. He was very knowledgeable in all areas of the sale, including taxation, local regulatory compliance, labor relations, estates and trusts. He was available weekends and evenings to fine tune every sentence and negotiate every detail which arose. Most importantly, he is an attorney who went out of his way to solve problems as a deal closer to make the transaction happen. I would strongly recommend his services and his pleasing and personable way of dealing with people and diffusing potential problems.
I hired John to help with the sale of my company, Digiticians. He provided both sound legal judgment and counsel, but he was also a great sounding board for a difficult negotiation. He helped me think through all of the angles and get the best deal. Most importantly, he helped me get the deal done, and to me that was the most important. I would recommend John highly for anyone looking at a major business development, round of investment, merger or acquisition.
I used John for advice and document review when looking at a potential acquisition of a competitor. In addition I took a course John gave for small business owners to understand and prepare for the acquisition process. So in addition to providing me with excellent legal (and business!) advice John also walked me through the process so I knew what to expect and when. His approach was very much showing me how things are done so I could understand and also so I could do as much self-service as I would like to do — which I much appreciated. Some attorney’s tend to hoard their knowledge. John took the opposite approach. I will use John again for the next acquisition I pursue.
We first met John in 2005 when we decided to sell our business that had been in the family for 40 years to a public company. He did a tremendous job of helping us understand what needed to be done to satisfy all of the objectives of different family members, some who continued to work for the new company and some who resigned or retired. In 2008 my brother and I left that pubic company and turned to John to help us acquire a small private company, again with great efficiency and success. We are currently working with John on a very large prospective client that has presented us with a rather complicated contract. As we have grown this company and see another generation coming into the business we will turn to John again to make sure that we are structured properly to protect the next generation and have an orderly transfer of ownership.
John represented us in the sale of a small manufacturing company. He was very knowledgeable in all areas of the sale, including taxation, local regulatory compliance, labor relations, estates and trusts. He was available weekends and evenings to fine tune every sentence and negotiate every detail which arose. Most importantly, he is an attorney who went out of his way to solve problems as a deal closer to make the transaction happen. I would strongly recommend his services and his pleasing and personable way of dealing with people and diffusing potential problems.
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