Corporate Finance & Planning Insights for Multi-Generational Family Businesses
Family business directors will make plenty of difficult decisions in 2021, and many of those decisions will require assessing the value of the company’s shares, a particular business segment, or a potential acquisition target. What should you and your fellow directors know about valuation? In our experience, there are six basic valuation principles that can guide directors as they make tough valuation-related decisions in the coming year.
It is understandably frustrating for family business directors when the simple question – what is our family business worth? – elicits a complicated answer. While we would certainly prefer to give a simple answer, the reality a valuation is attempting to describe is not simple.
The answer depends on why the question is being asked. We know that sounds suspect, but in this post, we will demonstrate why it’s not. Let’s consider three potential scenarios that require three different answers.
In last week’s post, we demonstrated how critical getting the level of value right is for family businesses for estate planning, acquisitions, and divestitures. We conclude our series on the levels of value this week, by turning our attention to shareholder redemption transactions.
In last week’s post, we defined the three principal levels of value and explained that the levels reflect differing perspectives on expected future cash flows and risk. This week, we turn our attention to the importance of the levels of value for family businesses.
Family shareholders are occasionally perplexed by the fact that the value of their shares can have more than one value. This multiplicity of values reflects the economic fact that different markets, different investors, and different expectations necessarily lead to different values.
Business valuation experts use the term “level of value” to refer to these differing perspectives. Each of the basic levels of value corresponds to different perspectives on the value of the business. In this post, we will explore the relevant characteristics of each level.
As family business leaders continue to make hard decisions in real-time against the ever-changing backdrop of the pandemic, their legal and tax advisors would do well to consider whether this is an opportune time for intra-family ownership transfers. For many family businesses, the current economic uncertainty presents a unique, and perhaps fleeting, opportunity for more tax-efficient estate planning.
It is understandably frustrating for family business directors when the simple question – what is our family business worth? – elicits a complicated answer. While we would certainly prefer to give a simple answer, the reality a valuation is attempting to describe is not simple.
The answer depends on why the question is being asked. We know that sounds suspect, but in this post, we will demonstrate why it’s not. Let’s consider three potential scenarios that require three different answers.
A recent federal court decision in a tax dispute represented a significant victory for family business shareholders. The case (Kress v. U.S.) revolved around the value of a multi-generation family business, Green Bay Packaging (“GBP”). While we generally think family business directors have more important things to think about than tax-related judicial decisions, the Kress decision is one with which family business directors should be familiar. In this post, we identify five important takeaways for family business directors from Kress.
This is the inaugural post for our Family Business Director blog. By way of introduction, we thought we would anticipate a few questions that you might have.
