After a $10 million exit, the founder had a different problem to solve.
Technology founder · Three young children
A technology founder successfully exited his business for approximately $10 million after more than a decade of building it. The exit created liquidity, but it also created a new set of questions.
The opportunityThe founder had three young children and wanted the wealth created through the exit to support them over the long term. At the same time, he did not want a large inheritance to become an unstructured transfer of wealth, particularly while the children were still young and their own relationship with money, business and responsibility was yet to develop. The question was no longer how to create wealth. It was how to hold, protect and transition it responsibly.
- 01
Understand
We mapped the founder's personal and financial position: the exit proceeds, existing investments and assets, future liquidity requirements, the children's needs and his longer-term intentions for the family, across each stage of the family's life.
- 02
Structure
A private family trust was evaluated as the central component, so that family wealth could be held and administered with defined beneficiaries and governance rather than fragmented or transferred outright at a single point in time.
- 03
Protect and govern
The structure was considered alongside ownership, protection, governance, tax and compliance, and continuity beyond the founder's lifetime.
- 04
Implement
The tax and financial architecture was developed with the family's legal advisors so that the final documentation reflected the founder's objectives within the applicable legal and regulatory framework.
A succession framework, not just a trust.
The founder had a framework around the wealth created from his exit, one that could evolve as his children grew, while giving the family clarity around ownership, administration and long-term stewardship. The exit had solved the business problem. The succession exercise answered the question that came next: what happens to everything you've built when you're no longer the one building it?
