Bringing your philanthropic dreams to life after selling your business
There’s one particularly interesting gentleman that I’ve been working with since he and his business partners sold their company in 2008. One of his main goals was to give back to his local community – and through hard work and a close working relationship, I’m really proud of how Canaccord helped him achieve this goal.
The amount of money he obtained from the business sale meant we didn’t have to look at funding his lifestyle. Instead, we concentrated on generating income, allowing him to put more money into a charitable trust.
Structuring the Estate: giving to family
To start with, we worked on the structure of his estate. He has a farm and farmland, plus some other assets that are inheritance tax (IHT) exempt.
Working closely with his lawyers, we restructured his Will so that all the IHT-exempt assets went to his children. His intention was to set them up for a comfortable life, while still allowing them to be successful in their own right.
Then we addressed his non-IHT-exempt assets (i.e. those assets that could be liable for IHT depending on how they are structured). These went into a charitable trust that I helped set up – more on that below.
Supporting the local community through a charitable trust
As soon as we started working together, it was obvious that doing something for his local community was vitally important to my client. He’s a kind and passionate man who has worked hard all his life and was intent on continuing to do so.
He wanted to set up a charitable trust with the aim of redeveloping an area that is actually local to both of us. My initial role was to:
- Look at how the trust could be set up
- How it would be funded
- How tax relief could be obtained
- How income could be generated to benefit the trust's beneficiaries
Since then, we have continued to work closely together to ensure we continue to meet his philanthropic aspirations.
Working together in partnership - why collaboration is key
Like any relationship, it’s taken a lot of hard work to get our partnership to where it is today – and we’ve both put in a lot of effort. We spend a great deal of time together, discussing the charitable trust and listening hard to what each other has to say.
I hope he’d say that I’ve shown my worth by providing valuable financial advice and guidance so that he can achieve his philanthropic dreams. And together, we can both feel very proud of what we’ve achieved.
In summary:
- Your relationship with your financial planner will be like any other relationship – you’ll get out of it what you put in
- Consider if you’d like to be involved with any philanthropic endeavours or charitable giving
- If philanthropy is important to you, spend some time thinking about how your own values could align with the charitable organisations you could get involved with
- Discuss your ideas with a financial planner – they can consider how these will work alongside your personal wealth and estate planning
- If you decide to proceed, a financial planner can set up your charitable giving as part of your personal wealth management plan and as tax efficiently as possible.
Our exclusive free guide for business owners explores the eight key insights for personal wealth optimisation, to ensure you don’t lose sight of yourself in a business exit or sale.
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