Business & Finance
Selling the family company without dismantling the family
Sequencing the trust work before the letter of intent, and why the order matters more than the terms.
December 14, 2025
A closely-held company is two things at once — an enterprise and an inheritance. Advice that treats it as only one of those will fail at the other.
The approach
Business & Finance covers the whole life of an entity: formation, governance and compliance while it runs; contracts, financing and transactions while it grows; sale, succession or wind-down when it ends; and litigation when the owners fall out with one another.
The recurring failure in this work is sequence. Trust and tax structure put in place after a letter of intent is signed is structure put in place too late. The department therefore sits alongside Private Client and Tax by design — the planning is done while it is still cheap, still defensible, and still possible.
Major areas within the department
Choosing and forming the right entity, then keeping it in good order — bylaws and operating agreements, board and member governance, and the annual filings and records that regulators and counterparties will eventually ask to see.
Drafting and negotiating the agreements a business runs on, arranging the capital it needs to grow, and papering the purchase, sale or combination of a company from letter of intent to closing.
Planning an owner’s eventual exit while the company is healthy, and, where a company’s life is ending, closing it properly rather than letting it lapse.
The disputes that follow when an agreement, a partnership or a competitor’s conduct goes wrong — owner disputes, business torts, and commercial and contract litigation.
Fund formation and portfolio-company matters for private investors, and the insurance and risk-transfer questions that run alongside almost every transaction.
From the journal
Sequencing the trust work before the letter of intent, and why the order matters more than the terms.
business organizations Piercing the Corporate Veil: Understanding Shareholder Liability Piercing the corporate veil, also known as lifting the corporate veil, refers
Business Organizations Choosing an Entity You’re finally ready to take the leap. You’ve quit your job, written a business plan,
Resources
Representative matters
Details are altered to preserve confidentiality.
Questions
When should planning begin relative to a sale?
Twelve to eighteen months before. After a letter of intent, most of the useful options have closed and the value is no longer a matter of opinion.
Do we really need a buy-sell agreement?
If more than one person owns the company, yes. The alternative is negotiating one day with a departing owner’s spouse, estate or creditor.
Can my children inherit the company without running it?
Yes — through non-voting interests, a trustee with genuine business judgment, or a sale with the proceeds held in trust. What they cannot inherit is the founder’s attention.
The first conversation costs nothing, and commits you to nothing.
