Business Succession
Uchino Law assists small businesses owners to plan for what should happen to their business after they retire, become incapacitated or pass away. Uchino Law has experience in both business law and estate planning and can provide advice from both perspectives. Uchino Law generally goes through the following steps in a business succession plan:
- Valuation of the business by a third party
- Creation of a business continuation plan
- Restructuring the business in accordance with the business continuation plan
- Putting agreements in place for exit mechanisms of current owners
- Succession planning
- Review of contracts that the company has that may need to be amended in accordance with the succession planning
- Updating business owners' estate plans as needed
The following are certain strategies that we have assisted clients in executing
- Buy/sell agreements, enabling successor partners to buy the exiting or deceased partner's equity of the company
- Entity purchase agreements, where a company takes out insurance policies on each partner so that, in the event of a partner's exit or death, the insurance policy is used to purchase the exiting or deceased partner's shares
- Buyout plans, allowing for the management team or successor to buy out the company
- Transfers of Business Interests to Joint Trusts, so that a co-trustee (presumably, a spouse or family member) can become the business owner
We also advise business owners who want to retire somewhere overseas as to how to keep a business in California running after doing so. Please contact us to learn more about potential strategies for business succession planning
