Succession Planning

We help family businesses across Australia protect and enhance their wealth by providing well-researched advice on:

• Asset protection and preservation.
• Creation and ongoing guidance for family offices.
• Establishment, administration, and revision of asset holding structures.
• Family business transition strategies and implementation (partial or full exits).
• Inter-generational planned succession and wealth management plans.

We are experienced in establishing family ownership structures for families as well as unlisted family companies. Our services include:

• Revision of existing family arrangements and providing improvement recommendations.
• Developing structures that meet the family requirements while catering for individual interests and needs.
• Ensuring structures adequately support family investments, ongoing business activities, philanthropic interests, and other related activities.
• Ensuring accountability within business structures.
• Assessing and monitoring family governance structures to ensure transparency to enable current and future decision making and successful transfer of family assets as required.

We provide services and advice on establishing and operating the appropriate structures that support your family’s ownership, business operations and asset management.

Our services include:

• Ensuring asset security and protection against excessive taxation and regulation as well as other external factors.
• Revision of existing structures to support tax-effective changes in ownership relating to intergenerational wealth transfers.

Managing changes and transitions

Family businesses can be often complex and sizable with a diverse range of assets. Therefore, it is critical that these organisations – and the families which they support – have effective structures in place which support its wealth and business operations, with clearly defined succession plan protocols. Our team can help by:

• Assisting with the creation of carefully planned and managed transition processes for your family members and their business, whatever the situation.
• Providing ongoing support and professional services to manage out-dated family structures, changes to family dynamics (as well as blended families), incapacitated family members, as well as any changes to family business management and governance.

Increasingly families understand that their businesses need clear succession plans and effective structures to support them. Both the structures and plan need to enable easy intergenerational asset transfers when required, as well as clear and predetermined succession in family leadership.

BBAS Accounting Services has significant experience in providing advice to family businesses relating to succession planning, taking into account:

• Ensuring all wills, powers of attorney and statements of wishes are in-line with the family’s succession protocols.
• Reviewing beneficiary designations.
• Ensuring the correct investment structures and asset protection is in place.
• Ensuring all the required documentation is in place and up to date regarding trust deeds, insurance arrangements, shareholder agreements and other structures needed for in the event of disablement or death situations.

Facilitating discussions and documenting agreements

Family business transition is not always an easy process. Often it involves complex emotional issues that can lead to conflict, and sometimes conflict within the family may already exist. The team at BBAS are experienced facilitators and mediators who operate effectively in these environments. We are here to help you and your family find an appropriate way forward while still recognising the concerns and beliefs individuals may have. In these often-difficult situations, we frequently:

• Facilitate honest and open conversations with all family members present. In this process, we identify, recognise and resolve potential issues or disputes by encouraging the active participation of the affected parties.
• Help family members work through disputes relating to wills and the associated wealth.
• Work with the family to make provision for charitable and philanthropic activities, including any necessary compliance with regulatory authorities.
• Ensure dispute solutions are tax effective and minimise disruption and cost to both the business and the family. We provide pragmatic and workable solutions for individuals and families in trying these situations.

No matter what the size of your business, or how complex your family structure is, the team at BBAS Accounting Services can help you. Our experienced succession planning advisors will guide you and your family to ensure the best outcomes for everyone involved. We focus on creating a workable succession plan and a smooth transition implementation.

Contact us today for a confidential discussion by calling (07) 3886 1652 or complete the online form below and we will contact you.