Q & A With the Business Team

Our Business Consulting advisors answer a recent question one of them received, below:

Question: I’d like to give shares of my company to my children, but we are not the only shareholders and our shareholder agreements are over 30 years old. Our other shareholders are not completely aligned with this idea. How could this conflict have been avoided or mitigated?

Answer: Part of putting agreements to own shares in place is making sure they are clean and execute-able. We have seen that when agreements exist but are open to interpretation, there is no basis for shareholder decisions, and differing interpretations can create conflict.

Specifically, we’ve seen issues arise, despite systems being in place for many years, when there is a lack of alignment between shareholder agreements, estate planning agreements, and buy-sell agreements.

This brings to light the importance of having wise counselors not only to design plans but also to implement them. Implementation is one of our differentiators: Many consultants do discovery and design and stop there. Lack of an implementation plan can have unintended consequences, like plans not being implemented, or only partially so. By engaging advisors who can both create and implement plans, you increase the likelihood of your ideas coming to fruition.

Have a question for the team? Submit it here.