A wave of business transitions is approaching, and Michael Gold, founder and CEO of Westport’s Gold Family Wealth, says most owners are not ready for it.
Close to three-quarters of privately held business owners expect to transition or exit their companies within the next decade. Industry estimates put the value tied to those transitions between ten and fourteen trillion dollars. Despite the scale of that shift, Michael Gold says many owners remain unprepared because the professionals advising them are simply not talking to each other.
Silos Create Costly Delays
“People do not think about the end in mind early enough,” Michael Gold Westport says. He points to cases where business owners have had to postpone a sale by a full year just to re-characterize assets and avoid unnecessary tax drag, delays that trace back to advisors who never coordinated their planning in the first place.
An estate attorney may draft documents without checking in with the family’s accountant. An investment advisor may build a portfolio without accounting for the nuances of an approaching succession plan. Each piece of advice can be technically sound while the whole picture remains disconnected for the family relying on it.
Building the Advisory Team Around the Exit
Gold’s approach, which he describes as orchestration rather than accumulation of advisors, is meant to catch these gaps well before a transaction date arrives. His Westport firm’s dedicated practice for complex families uses advanced modeling and multigenerational governance planning to stress-test tax outcomes across different liquidity scenarios long before a business changes hands.
The goal, Michael Gold says, is to give families confidence that nothing has been overlooked once the decisions that matter most finally arrive. For business owners approaching an exit, he argues, that kind of coordinated foresight is worth more than any single piece of specialist advice.
With trillions of dollars in business wealth expected to change hands over the coming years, Gold’s Westport-based model of coordinated planning is drawing renewed attention from families trying to avoid the pitfalls of disconnected advice. Refer to this article for related information.
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