Buying, Selling, and Valuing Financial Practices: The FP Transitions M&A Guide + Website

The Authoritative M&A Guide for Financial Advisors

Buying, Selling & Valuing Financial Practices shows you how to complete a sale or acquisition of a financial advisory practice and have both the buyer and seller walk away with the best possible terms. From the first pages of this unique book, buyers and sellers will find detailed information that separately addresses each of their needs, issues, and concerns.

From bestselling author and industry influencer David Grau Sr., this masterful guide takes you from the important basics of valuation to the finer points of deal structuring, due diligence, and legal matters, with a depth of coverage and strategic guidance that puts you in another league when you enter the M&A space. Complete with valuable tools, worksheets, and checklists on a companion website, no other resource enables you to:

Master the concepts of value and valuation and take this issue "off the table" early in the negotiation process Utilize advanced deal structuring techniques including seller and bank financing strategies Understand how to acquire a book, practice, or business based on how it was built and what it is capable of delivering in the years to come Navigate the complexities of this highly regulated profession to achieve consistently great results whether buying, selling, or merging

Buying, Selling & Valuing Financial Practices will ensure that you manage your M&A transaction properly and professionally, aided with the most powerful set of tools available anywhere in the industry, all designed to create a transaction where everyone wins buyer, seller, and clients.

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1: The Basics You Need to Know

Chapter 2: Value and Valuation Fundamentals

Chapter 3: Solving Valuation

Chapter 4: Building and Preserving Value toward the End of Your Career

Chapter 5: Preparing to Sell

Chapter 6: The Buyer s Perspective

Chapter 7: Deal Structuring: Payment Terms, Taxes, and Financing

Chapter 8: Due Diligence and Documentation

Chapter 9: Key Legal Issues in the M&A Process

Chapter 10: The Transition Plan

Index

DAVID GRAU SR., JD, is the founder and president of FP Transitions, the preeminent consulting firm known as much for building sustainable businesses as selling or merging them at the end of a career. FP Transitions has valued over 8,000 financial services or advisory practices and businesses, and consulted on over 1,500 completed third–party transactions. Grau Sr. previously authored the bestselling Succession Planning for Financial Advisors: Building an Enduring Business, also published by Wiley. He has written 90 nationally published articles, white papers, and manuals on complex succession strategies, equity management, business continuity, income–perpetuation plans, and mergers and acquisitions. Grau Sr. was named one of the most influential people in the profession in an industry survey by Financial Planning magazine and is a nationally recognized expert on succession planning and business– perpetuation strategies in the financial services industry.