Plan your business exit to optimise your wealth goals

ONE of the biggest assets on entrepreneurs’ personal balance sheet is their business. Yet, I have observed that many do not integrate it with their own personal wealth planning. Instead, they depend solely on their personal assets to fund the life goals they want to achieve.

To be fair, integrating one’s business assets into personal wealth planning is not an easy task, even for wealth advisers. How do you estimate the value of businesses in private markets in, say, 10 years’ time? In listed securities, at least there is enough data for us to estimate expected returns.

There is also the need to determine when owners will exit their businesses. Business owners are so busy ensuring that their enterprise survives the infant years. Past the survival stage, they focus on profitability and growth, leaving no time to consider retirement.