If you’ve worked all your life as an employee, retirement tends to be a goal that’s anticipated with pleasure. Not so for many business owners. In fact many of them find it difficult to set a date, any date for retirement. If you’ve built a business from scratch, you’ve invested both financially and emotionally – letting go can be exceptionally hard.
Emotional Ties to the Business
Anyone watching the hideously fascinating third season of Succession will have been served up a master class in emotional investment. You don’t have to be a monster like Logan Roy to feel that your identity is entwined with the business you’ve created. The fear that you’ll lose your identity along with the business is a common one.
Planning is key to making the transition successfully. What haven’t you had time to do whilst your focus has been growing the business? What relationship do you want with your business once you’re retired? And how long will it take you to plan for and enact a smooth succession plan guaranteeing ongoing success?
Financial Ties to the Business
Independent research carried out by the Prudential shows that over a third of business owners in the UK have decided to invest in their business, rather than their pensions. As a result, the business funds their lifestyle, making retirement appear to be an impossible option. Many business owners see their only option as heading up the business well into their seventies.
Alternatively, you could work out how exactly much you would need to maintain your lifestyle into retirement and carry out a current valuation of the business. Once you have these two figures you have a clear understanding of the additional income you would need to raise in order to retire.
Retirement Planning for Business Owners
At Harpur Wealth Management we work with business owners to create realistic and manageable retirement planning. Our work isn’t just about the financial aspects of the exercise; we know how important careful planning is to the emotional adjustment retirement requires, so we are partners in a process of making retirement a possible and desirable state of affairs.
As business owners ourselves we understand many of the concerns our clients are addressing. We take time to understand your business, and your specific concerns around your retirement. A wealth management advisor will calculate all the benefits you receive from your business – such as health insurance, expenses, credit card – and work out the exact income you need to replace it. Once we know the figures, we work with owners to create a retirement plan that can replace the income that will be lost.
If you are a business owner and would like to discuss retirement planning with a Harpur Wealth Management advisor, call us today for a free consultation – 01234 924620
Disclaimer
This article is for information only and must not be considered as financial advice. We always recommend that you seek independent financial advice before making any financial decisions.
The value of your investment can go down as well as up and you may get back less than the amount invested.
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