Ask any corporate financier: owners will negotiate for months over the last £100k of a sale price. Then completion happens, the money lands, and the biggest financial event of their life is handled in a few distracted weeks — usually starting with the sentence "I suppose I should talk to someone about all this."
It is exactly backwards. The value of personal financial planning around an exit is highest before heads of terms are signed, and it collapses almost to nothing the day after completion. Two levers in particular close forever when the deal does:
- Pension funding from the company. Substantial, corporation-tax-efficient contributions are possible while the trading company exists — and impossible once it doesn't.
- Pre-sale structure. Business Asset Disposal Relief positioning, surplus-cash treatment and gifting strategy all need time. Weeks are not enough; two years is comfortable.
Two workstreams, one team
A joined-up exit runs two parallel workstreams. The accountant and any corporate finance adviser run the deal: valuation, tax on the transaction, due diligence, negotiation. The financial planner runs the owner: what the proceeds must deliver, for how long, at what risk — and everything that should happen to pensions, protection and structure before the money moves.
The two workstreams meet constantly. The planner's pension funding affects the company's cash and the accountant's tax planning. The accountant's BADR analysis shapes the planner's structuring. Neither can do their best work without the other — which is why the owners who feel genuinely wealthy five years after selling are almost always the ones whose advisers talked to each other.
What the owner gets
- A personal "number" — what the sale actually needs to achieve — before negotiations start, which changes how they negotiate.
- Proceeds with a destination: an investment and income plan agreed before completion, so the money never sits idle while decisions loom.
- Protection through the deal period, when the owner's value to the business is at its absolute peak.
- A retirement that starts on completion day — not two anxious years later.
Maximising the price is half the job. Making the price buy the life is the other half.
For accountants, this is also the highest-value introduction there is. Exit conversations start in your office — the approach letter, the "what's it worth?" question, the succession chat. Bringing a regulated planner in early, through a structured partnership like Altro, turns the biggest transaction of your client's life into the strongest proof of your firm's value.