The Framework for Assynt Services

Please see below

As a business owner you are looking at the long-term future for you, your family and your business.

There is a plethora of information available. The problem is you may not necessarily be able to find the right information, or it may be so scattered you cannot pull it together in a way that would be beneficial to you.

This website takes the concepts, simplifies them into four questions and delivers these to you in a series of pages.

The framework below is a snapshot and you can choose where you want to start. It consists of four basic questions: what is my business worth; how can I protect it; how I grow it sustainably and how do I get out when the time is right.

This framework is what Assynt does. Everything is in terms of the products and service provided and falls within one of these four questions.

Assynt does not clam to be an expert in all of these areas. It cannot be all things to all people. So, where this is the case, I would bring in a trusted adviser to answer the questions.

Question 1: What is my business worth?

Elsewhere in this website you will find a 10 question quiz.

Business owners should always know their business is sellable, even if they do not want to sell it just yet. The questionnaire is not a formal valuation. To do this, I use a formal questionnaire. It is designed to be guide for you to find the strong points and where you need to invest to make your business more saleable.

Question 2: How do I protect it?

This can be one of the more interesting discussion areas and may well have an impact on value. Quite simply there are insurable and uninsurable risks. We have witnessed both in the last two years. Most businesses talk about the insurable risks. Where you are looking to transition out of your business it is mitigating the uninsurable risks that is important to secure a value for your business. I try to shift your thought process from one of premiums to one based on process-based risk management

Question 3: How do I grow it sustainably?

Again, there are two tracks to go down: can the business be scaled and if not why.

Where you are prepared to scale the business the conversations, I have with owners tend to be about making the owners operationally redundant. In some cases, this has happened. In others it has not and here I talk about standard operational procedures.

Where an owner is unable to scale their business or does not want to, then the alternative action is to focus on compensation they can derive from their business and use the business as a vehicle to acquire personal assets outside the business to enhance their retirement. Which brings me onto the last question…

Question 4: How do I transfer out of my business?

Again, there are two paths to go down: a planned exit or an unplanned one.

In the case of a planned one there are options including a trade sale or an internal one. This is likely to result in a higher value. An unplanned ne is where something happens usually a death or serious illness. How do you prepare for that; where is the money ging to come from.

There is of course one overriding consideration: taxation. How will you do all of this without paying too much tax. So, tax planning and preparation with a tax adviser is important to achieve the minimum amount of tax during the whole of this framework.

Need Help? Contact Andrew at Assynt:

If you are serious about selling your business, contact Andrew to arrange an informal chat, in person or over the telephone to assess the options open to you.

You can also contact Andrew by email at: awatkin@assyntcf.co.uk or by completing the form on this page.