ADVISORY SERVICES FOR PRIVATELY HELD BUSINESSES (PHB)
Strategic business planning
Effective planning is probably the single most important factor in the success of our clients' businesses. Plans must look at the structure of management, key opportunities and the limited resources available, and the planning must involve the people in your business who are key to making change work. No matter how different, each plan follows the same methodology developed by Grant Thornton over the past two decades. It is quick, pragmatic and effective.
Management/family succession
Where to from here? What is my business worth? Who should buy it? What about the family? Who else might there be? What can be done to increase the value? What about tax? How will they pay for it? How do I retire? What about wills? Few owners of private businesses have developed a written succession plan, mostly it’s a tangle of questions in their heads. The succession planning process helps you to plot your future by providing you with a strategy and prioritised choices to work on
We see Succession Planning as “a formal process which enables the business owner(s) to evaluate their business and personal circumstances in light of current and possible future exit options, so as to develop a preferred course of action from a range of alternatives, whilst they are still in a position of control.”
Business owner structures
How would you feel if everything you've worked for was lost? Most business owners unknowingly have their assets exposed, and risk losing their wealth because they have not been advised on how to structure their assets and liabilities in the event of misfortune. Grant Thornton helps its clients to maximise the protection of their assets; ensure their assets are owned in the most appropriate structure; build a wall between their business and personal assets; gain the maximum security they can for advances to their business; and protect themselves before its too late.
Family member remuneration
The family controlled or privately owned business can represent an enviable source of financial independence for key stakeholders. However, the question of fair remuneration for the family employees is a burning issue and the following should be considered, “What should be the basis for establishing salary levels of family employees and how do you reward ownership?”
There are a number of commercial and taxation benefits that remuneration planning can offer you. Remuneration is an emotional issue for a lot of people and getting it wrong has the potential to create conflict within privately owned and family owned businesses. Issues of fairness are critical to successfully implementing remuneration advice.
Business owner audits
Our emphasis is on understanding the business, the owners and the balance sheet. Our audit approach has greater emphasis on systems, risk, reconciliation and accounting policies, and less focus on extensive 'robotic' verification and technical compliance.
Debt and banking advisory
When talking with our clients about their businesses finance & banking needs, we often find they are not really across all the terms of their current banking deal, knowing this is crucial and the start to getting a better deal!
Debt & Banking Advisory covers the following:
1. Finance & banking reviews
- an independent expert review of existing or proposed debt and banking facilities
- highlights positives and negatives for the facilities
- areas in which the deal can be improved.
2. Debt advisory
- capital management review; having the right level of gearing for a business is a key capital management decision
- advice on the level and structure of debt that a business can expect to sustain
- identify the best financiers for industry and businesses
- prepare and manage competitive tender processes with appropriate financiers and banks
- negotiate with financiers / banks to achieve key client goals