Building your business up from nothing took a lot of your time, energy and money.

You might have sacrificed a family life to get where you are now. Now your biggest wish is to know that your business will survive your death or disability and that it will continue for a long time. You especially don’t want the family to squabble about who is going to take over and run the place once you are not there anymore.

How we can help

We can help you set up a ‘Business Will’ – an arrangement like your personal Last Will and Testament, but with the explicit goal of ensuring that the transfer of ownership in the event of your death or disability happens smoothly and to the person(s) who will also have the survival of the business as their objective. This is called the Buy-and-Sell agreement and determines who will buy your share in the business in the event of your death.

It also determines a price for your share and how it is going to be funded – this means that there will not be any ambiguity in the process, and your personal estate can be finalised without any hold-ups, as the executor would not have to wait for a buyer for your share of the business. We can also help set up the life-cover policies which will fund the purchase of your share in the event of your death.

Contingent Liabilities

One of the biggest barriers to the smooth transfer of ownership of a business in the event of death AND how much capital you can leave your loved ones, is the issue of Contingent Liabilities – or the loans for which you signed personal surety to keep the business going. In the event of your death, the grantor of such loans usually demands the repayment of the loan immediately and is also not prepared to transfer the liability to another person. The settling of the debt then has to come from your personal estate, or the business might have to be sold to redeem the debt. This could seriously affect the capital available to look after your dependants or the legacy you wanted to leave.

Keyperson Insurance

There is always that one or two persons in a business who is the driver of its success. Most of the time it is the business owner, but the really key-persons in the business could include a number of the people who fills other roles. But if any of the key-persons are to become disabled, or die, or are even just off for a long time due a serious illness, this could affect the business severely. We can help set up the necessary policies to make sure that there is money available to the business to replace a keyperson in the event of death or disability.