Exit & Succession Planning for Advice Firms
Most advisers sell their firm once. The people buying it have done it many times before.
Ray Best has been on the selling side of that table. He built a client bank over decades, prepared it for sale and completed the transaction. This service is about getting your firm ready long before you need it to be.
Who We Work With
We work with the owners of advice firms who are somewhere between three and ten years from stepping back and with those already in conversation with a buyer.
Value is built in the years before a sale, not in the weeks of negotiation. The firms that achieve the best outcomes are almost always the ones that started preparing while selling was still a vague intention.
This is a business consultancy service. We work on your firm, not on your clients’ affairs.
How We Help
Exit Readiness Review
A structured look at your firm as a buyer will see it: recurring income, client demographics, adviser dependency, systems, data quality and documentation. You get an honest assessment of where you stand and what is likely to be discounted.
What Buyers Pay For
Acquirers price some things generously and others barely at all. We walk through what tends to attract a premium, what raises questions in a negotiation and which of those factors you still have time to change.
Client Bank Preparation
Much of what slows a transaction down is administrative: incomplete files, inconsistent records, and income that cannot easily be evidenced. We help you work through this methodically, rather than under deadline pressure with a buyer waiting.
Succession from Within
Selling externally is not the only route. Where there is an internal successor, or the possibility of one, we help you think through the timing, the structure and the practical realities of handing a firm to the people already in it.
Preparing for Due Diligence
Due diligence is where under-prepared firms lose both value and goodwill. We help you assemble in advance what will be asked for so that the process tests your paperwork rather than your patience.
Life After the Sale
The part almost nobody plans for. Earn-out periods, working under a new owner, and the question of what you actually do next deserve as much thought as the price.
A note on our status
UnaVida Wealth Management Ltd is no longer a regulated adviser and has withdrawn from the FCA. This is a non-regulated consultancy service. We do not act as your corporate finance adviser or broker, we do not introduce or negotiate with buyers on your behalf, and we do not provide legal, tax or accounting advice on a transaction. You should take specialist advice on those matters, and we are glad to work alongside those who provide it.
How We Start
The first conversation costs nothing. We will ask where the firm is now, when you would like to stop, and what you believe the business is worth. If preparation work is warranted, we will set out what it involves before you commit to anything
ARRANGE A CONVERSATION
Resources
Choose from our extensive library of informative guides, helpful videos and insightful blogs.
Our Approach
Practice Management & Mentoring – Building a firm that runs well and is worth more when you come to sell it.
Paraplanning & Compliance File Reviews – Getting files and documentation into the condition due diligence will demand.
