For business owners preparing to sell, founders approaching liquidity, and owners who intend to retire on the other side of a transaction. If most of your net worth sits inside the business, or you are weighing sale against succession or recapitalization, the planning you do before the letter of intent determines what you keep after it.
A sale takes a lifetime of work and condenses it into a single final decision. A decision carrying that much weight deserves a firm with the capability, the resources, and the boutique advisor-to-client ratio to give it real time and attention, starting well before a buyer appears.
Wealthstone builds the exit strategy in advance and aligns it with the investment plan and the retirement plan, so all three answer the same question. We work directly alongside your CPA and your attorneys, keeping everyone at the table on one plan rather than three. The objective is not a closed transaction. It is an exit engineered to fund the life you have decided you want on the other side of it.
Buyers negotiate price. Owners who plan well negotiate everything else. These are the questions we resolve before you go to market, because the answers are worth far more before the deal than after it.
Headline price and after-tax proceeds are different numbers, often by a wide margin. Federal capital gains, net investment income tax, state tax, and deal structure all sit between the two.
Entity structure, QSBS eligibility, and basis positioning take years to optimize and days to squander. Preparation starts well before the banker's first call.
The sale converts an operating asset into capital that must fund the rest of your life. That conversion needs a target, not a hope.
Asset versus stock sale, installment treatment, rollover equity, charitable gifting before close, and state residency each move the after-tax result. Most are locked at signing.
A wire hits the account and a second career begins: capital allocation. Day-one liquidity, staged diversification, and income design should be decided before close, not after.
The most expensive sequence in exit planning is closing the deal and then calling the advisors. The order of operations is the strategy.
Liquidity changes your estate picture overnight. Trust structures, titling, and governance decisions made before the sale protect what the sale creates.
A five-stage sequence that runs from years before the transaction to years after it. Each stage has its own deliverables, its own deadlines, and its own cost of being skipped.
Entity structure review, QSBS eligibility analysis, and an honest look at how your basis and likely deal structure interact. Section 1202 treatment, S-election consequences, and basis-building opportunities are measured in years, which is why this stage starts long before a banker is engaged. The work done here sets the ceiling on every tax strategy that follows.
We work backward from the life you intend to fund: annual spending, family commitments, philanthropy, and the next venture if there is one. That produces the after-tax number the transaction must clear, which becomes the benchmark for evaluating every offer, every structure, and every earnout. Owners who know this number negotiate differently.
Asset sale versus stock sale economics, installment notes, rollover equity treatment, charitable gifting completed before a binding agreement, and state residency timing. Each lever is evaluated against your independence target and modeled with your CPA and deal counsel. The architecture is finalized before the purchase agreement, because that is when it still exists.
A day-one liquidity plan so the wire lands into a structure, not a checking account. From there, staged diversification on a defined schedule and an income design that replaces the distributions the business used to pay you. The goal is a portfolio that funds the plan, built deliberately rather than in a single anxious week.
Estate plan integration for a balance sheet that just changed shape, protection structures for your family, and a considered plan for the next chapter, whether that is a board seat, a foundation, or a second company. The exit is an event. Governance is what makes its results permanent.
Every exit draws on a specific set of strategies. Each of these will become a dedicated briefing as the library is built out.
The end-to-end playbook for taking a private company to market with your personal outcome as the organizing objective.
Coming in full buildThe moves available only before a deal exists: entity work, gifting capacity, and balance sheet preparation.
Coming in full buildSection 1202 qualification, the $10 million and 10x basis exclusion, stacking considerations, and holding-period discipline.
Coming in full buildStructuring the transaction itself: asset versus stock treatment, installment notes, and state tax exposure.
Coming in full buildDeploying proceeds into a diversified portfolio with a defined liquidity runway and income design.
Coming in full buildA disciplined comparison of selling outright, transitioning to family or management, and recapitalizing.
Coming in full buildDonor-advised funds, charitable trusts, and gifting appreciated interests before a binding agreement to sell.
Coming in full buildThe Exit Proceeds Calculator takes your expected sale price, ownership, basis, deal structure, and QSBS eligibility and returns an estimated net proceeds figure with every layer of tax and cost itemized. It takes two minutes and changes most conversations.
Open the Exit Proceeds Calculator →Illustrative example: 100% ownership, $1M basis, QSBS-eligible stock sale, 5% state rate, 2% transaction costs. Your inputs will differ. Educational estimate only.
Ideally two to five years before a transaction. QSBS holding periods, entity restructuring, basis building, and residency changes all require lead time, and several strategies close permanently once a letter of intent or binding agreement exists. If you are closer than that, start now. The remaining levers are still worth pulling, and the proceeds plan matters regardless of timing.
Your CPA is essential, and we work alongside them rather than around them. A CPA's mandate is typically compliance and annual filings. Ours is the integration layer: connecting the transaction structure to your personal independence target, your estate plan, and the portfolio that follows. The best outcomes come from your CPA, deal counsel, banker, and wealth advisor working from one coordinated plan.
That is a planning question, not a disqualifier. A succession versus sale analysis puts real numbers on each path: outright sale, family or management transition, and partial recapitalization. Many owners discover that a minority recap or a structured succession funds their goals while keeping the company. The point of the work is to make the decision with evidence instead of pressure.
Before close, we build a day-one liquidity plan so the wire arrives into a defined structure: reserves, near-term commitments, and tax set-asides identified in advance. From there, capital is diversified in stages on a schedule we agree to in writing, and an income design replaces the compensation and distributions the business used to provide. Nothing is deployed by improvisation.
Yes, and the plan works best when we do. We coordinate directly with deal counsel, your CPA, and your banker so that personal tax and wealth considerations are reflected in the structure while it is still negotiable. If your team has gaps, we can introduce specialists we have worked with, though you always choose your own advisors.
Wealthstone is a fee-only registered investment adviser. We are compensated transparently by our clients, never by commissions, referral fees, or product sales. Fees are discussed openly in the first conversation and documented in writing before any engagement begins, so you can evaluate the cost against the scope of work with full information.
The exit conversation should start before the deal conversation does.
