Managing illiquid, private wealth in the context of The One Percent Solution requires a more active role for business owners and a different level of attention on the business itself. The truth is that between the two bookends of status quo and an eventual third-party sale are many possibilities for creating shareholder liquidity and diversification opportunities and facilitating both ownership and management transitions. This post examines several.

Having served as the third appraiser in numerous processes, I’ve learned from experience. The steps regarding the role of the third appraiser outlined in this post will not solve every problem. However, they will go a long way towards “fixing” processes that are otherwise broken, or badly bent.

The default valuation mechanism for many buy-sell agreements calls for the use of three appraisers to determine the price following trigger events. Such agreements have a variety of forms, but the goal of the three appraiser process is to reach a conclusion of the price for each transaction.

One reason many writers discuss leveraged share repurchases in general terms only is that they involve a company’s current income statement and balance sheet, as well as a pro forma balance sheets and income statements. Further, to see the impact on a company and its shareholders, the changes between the existing financials and the pro forma financials must be analyzed. This post presents an example of a leveraged share repurchase that will help bring the noted benefits for both a company and its owners, both selling and remaining, into clear focus.

In this post, we will examine another partial liquidity alternative for owners of closely held and family businesses, a leveraged share repurchase. This post will address conceptual issues. In the next post, we will develop an example leveraged repurchase transaction to illustrate these concepts and how they really work.

In this post, we discuss using a leveraged Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) as a means of obtaining partial liquidity from a business.

Personal branding is something we all do, whether consciously or not. Personal branding is part of selling, whether you are selling a product or service, or whether you are selling yourself and your services and abilities within your own organization. Personal branding is something that builds momentum when you pay attention to the basics on a daily basis. Personal branding is, well, personal. No one can or will do it for you. This post talks about the importance of personal branding along with my “good life” habits.

Marshall Goldsmith, the author and executive coach, wrote a little (in size only) book entitled Succession: Are You Ready? (Cambridge, Harvard Business Press, 2009). In it, he talks about letting go and moving on. His words should be taken to heart by many, if not most of us: “Almost all of the leaders who I have met assure me that they will be different. They confidently assert that they will have no problems letting go. You are probably delusional enough to believe that you too will be different. Take my word for it: while your desire for uniqueness may be theoretically possible, it is statistically unlikely. How business owners address this question is vital to the success of business transitions, and it is one that too often receives scant attention.” Are you ready to let go?

Everyone talks about goals at the end of each year. That’s good. We all should have them. The end of one year and the beginning of another is always a time to think about the future and goals. However, absent an appropriate context, forward-thinking can be useless. That context for me is in thankfulness for all of my life’s many blessings. Every reader of this blog is blessed in many ways. I hope you and I will always be thankful for our blessings. Then, we can talk about goals.

This post will focus on seven critical things you need to know about your company’s dividend policy. In summary: 1) Every company has a dividend policy; 2) Dividend policy influences return on business investment; 3) Dividend policy is a starting point for portfolio diversification; 4) Special dividends enhance personal liquidity and diversification; 5) Dividend policy does matter for private companies; 6) Dividend policy focuses management attention on financial performance; and 7) Boards of directors need to establish thoughtful dividend policies