Whether you’re buying or selling a business, there are a few players that are “must-haves” on your transaction team: personal lawyer, CPA/Tax professional, representative of your IBD/Custodian, personal stakeholders, and a non-advocate, industry-experienced mediator.
The role of each of these players is important to the overall success of your deal, however, the mediator can sometimes be overlooked–often to the disadvantage of your deal. So, why are they so important?
Topics: Selling Your Practice, Acquisition, Buying & Selling, Trends in Transactions Study, Transactions
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Even though it had been in the works for years, last month’s Schwab/Ameritrade merger left both organizations’ advisors wondering what it meant for them. The good news is that the transition has been seen as largely successful, with only some tech snafus which, let’s be honest, is to be expected when you’re talking about huge platform changes for millions of accounts. Adapting to change rarely happens overnight.
Topics: Selling Your Practice, Acquisition, M&A, Deal Structure, Buying & Selling
The decision to sell a financial services practice is a difficult one for any advisor to make. After a lifetime of work to build your business, and after years of earning your clients’ trust, how do you turn the job over to someone else? Will they work as hard as you have? Will they care as much as you do? Will they always put your clients’ interests first? When selling your practice, you get just one chance to do it right. The following case study provides some unique insights into the process and illustrates the opportunities, and the mistakes, that many first time sellers make:
Topics: Selling Your Practice, Acquisition, M&A, Deal Structure, Buying & Selling
What makes a financial services firm more desirable on the open market?
Topics: Selling Your Practice, Acquisition, Buying & Selling, Open Marketplace, M&A Playbook
Price is usually the most difficult hurdle for buyers and sellers to overcome. The value of a business is different for each party participating in a transaction and is based on opinion and the specific set of circumstances for each individual. Price, on the other hand, is the number at which the transaction is executed. Yes, value informs price, but it is not the only influencer. Price is also the result of good faith negotiations between buyer and seller. While negotiation does not necessarily impact each party’s perception of value, it allows for dialogue so that both sides arrive at a price where the value for each individual overlaps and a mutually beneficial deal can be struck.
Topics: Selling Your Practice, Acquisition, M&A, Business Value, Deal Structure, Buying & Selling, Mergers
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The vast majority of today’s independent advisors only consider the option of selling to a third-party when it is time to retire or significantly throttle back as a last resort. Many advisors prefer a path with internal successors that allows them to exit gradually while building a strong, sustainable business. Many of these same advisors, however, come to realize too late that that process takes a fair amount of time, skillful execution, and next generation talent. As a result, a third choice emerges: that of attrition, which for most advisors is less of a choice and more of a default–keep working, enjoy the income, and let the practice slowly wind down if no better option emerges.
Topics: Selling Your Practice
You invest a substantial amount of energy into running, growing, and evolving your business. Knowing when, where, and how to best direct your efforts could mean the difference in thousands, or even millions, of dollars long-term. Having spent two decades accruing and organizing essential datapoints on more than 15,000 businesses, we’ve got a tight grasp on what matters most at each step of the way.
Depending upon your goals, certain areas will move the needle faster than others. Rather than guess at the best use of your limited resources, our team has compiled a list of places where your ownership and C-Suite team can start assessing opportunities for increased firm value.
Topics: Selling Your Practice, Business Growth, M&A, Revenue Strength, Business Value, Revenue Sharing, Multiples, Benchmarking, Valuation & Appraisal, KPI
In our post-covid M&A world, finding “the perfect fit” is paramount. While price plays a role in deals, it has much more to do with the merging or acquiring entity’s vision and proposed deal terms. Our team has an unmatched vantage point in this industry when it comes to buying or selling an advisory firm. After reading through tens of thousands of inbound inquiries and supporting over 2,000 M&A transactions, we’ve picked up on a few resounding themes. Here are our #FPInsights on which aspects are of vital importance to firms seeking an acquisition or merger.
Topics: Selling Your Practice, Acquisition
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Despite the continued surge of wealth management M&A activity, one surprising fact remains: most of these market participants are engaging in a transaction for the very first time. While there are aggregators and larger RIAs that will continue to build up their business through strategic acquisitions, the majority of today’s deals spark from a mutual attraction either from aligned competencies, or complementary competencies, that allow both firms to amplify their growth and sustainability.
According to James Fisher, Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions at FP Transitions, “Many practices are looking to be acquired or merge with a larger business to spur growth, to benefit from economies of scale, to offload compliance and day-to-day operations, to increase bandwidth and offerings to clients, or to assist with the retirement of one or more senior owners/partners, among other reasons.”
Regardless of experience, it takes a lot of patience, communication, time, and expertise to navigate the entire deal process. For firms going through this, on any side of the table, negotiating and documenting the transaction can often be more time consuming than anyone anticipated, creating the perfect environment for an all-to-common problem: deal fatigue.
Topics: Selling Your Practice, Acquisition, M&A, Business Value, Deal Structure, Buying & Selling, Mergers
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We just got back from Fort Lauderdale where we spoke at the WealthStack RIAEdge conference for WealthManagement.com. James Fisher, FP Transitions’ Vice President of M&A spoke with several advisors onsite. We wanted to take some of the questions that we received and see if we could answer them for our broader client base.
Topics: Selling Your Practice, Commentary, M&A, Business Value, Buying & Selling