Buying, Selling, or Transitioning Your Business: An Attorney’s Advice

Corey Kupfer—Attorney, Deal-maker, Speaker, and Author

Overview

Expert industry attorney Corey Kupfer offers advice to all advisors, whether considering change or not, including perspectives on contractual obligations and potential landmines one might encounter in a move, plus how to prepare your business for change, with actionable best practices to adopt today.

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About this episode...

The process of considering change is wrought with complexity. For those who decide to make a move, there’s an entirely new set of considerations and potential complications—particularly in the regulatory-heavy, compliance-driven world that advisors now live in.

The good news is that there are attorneys who are highly experienced in securities law and advisor transitions who live and breathe this world. They identify the proper path for advisors to follow throughout the course of their transitions to ensure the process before, during, and after is as smooth as possible to avoid any potential legal repercussions. And they’re available to counsel all advisors, even those who haven’t decided to make a move but want to understand better the ties that bind them to their firm.

The bottom line is that the right attorney can quite literally be the difference between success and failure in an advisor transition.

Corey Kupfer is one such attorney with 35 years of experience serving as a legal guide and strategist to financial advisors. He joins Louis Diamond to discuss what advisors need to know when considering a transition, M&A, and other transactions along the way, including:

• Your contractual obligations—and what you need to know whether you’re planning a transition or not.
• The current regulatory state in wealth management—and how that impacts you and your clients.
• The transition process—and what potential land mines you need to watch out for.
• The dreaded TRO—and Corey’s insider perspective on how concerned an advisor needs to be.
• The future of non-competes—and how that might impact advisors considering change.
• Plus, Corey and Louis discuss the industry landscape and how the evolution is impacting advisor movement.

It’s an episode designed for all advisors, whether considering change or not, as it’s an opportunity to hear directly from an attorney about his perspective, predictions, and actionable best practices.

Related Resources

What Can Go Wrong in a Transition: How to Avoid “Murphy’s Law” - 7 ways a financial advisor’s move can take an unexpected wrong turn—and ways to prevent that from happening.

Financing Independence: A Lender’s Perspective on Breakaway Transitions, M&A and Succession - James Hughes of Live Oak Bank discusses debt financing for prospective breakaway advisors looking to de-risk a leap to independence or payoff a note balance, or business owners seeking funds for acquisitions or succession planning.

Top Tips for Setting Your Business Up for Success Years Before a Move - In this document, we have compiled the most salient tips collected from over two decades of helping our advisor-clients through successful transitions. So, whether you’re just at the curiosity stage or are deep into the due diligence process, there are plenty of things you can be doing in the background to prepare your business and team for a potential move.

You can also listen to the full episode on our website, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify.