PRIVATE BUSINESS SUCCESSION STRATEGY
Protect the value you spent a lifetime building.
ARX Legacy Partners helps business owners and their advisors pressure-test succession plans, buy-sell agreements, and insurance funding structures against today's tax and valuation environment.
2024
The rules did not change. The risk became clearer.
The Supreme Court's Connelly v. United States decision highlighted how company-owned life insurance proceeds can affect the estate tax valuation of a closely held business in a stock-redemption arrangement. A succession plan that made sense years ago deserves a fresh review before it is tested by death, disability, retirement, or a transfer of ownership.
WHY REVIEW NOW
Old plans can create new exposure.
Succession documents are often drafted once, funded once, and then left untouched while enterprise value, ownership, insurance, tax law, and family circumstances change. ARX helps identify where the plan on paper may no longer match the economic result the owners intended.
Does the plan reflect what the business is worth today?
Business valuations change with earnings, market conditions, and ownership structure. A buy-sell agreement funded at a prior valuation may leave a departing owner significantly underpaid — or an estate significantly over-taxed.
Will the insurance actually solve the problem?
Life insurance is the most common funding mechanism for buy-sell agreements. But policy ownership, beneficiary design, and coverage amounts must be aligned with the agreement's mechanics — and with current tax law.
Can the plan work when it matters?
A succession plan is only as good as its execution. Ambiguous valuation language, misaligned funding, and uncoordinated advisors can turn a well-intentioned plan into a dispute at the worst possible moment.
THE ARX REVIEW
A disciplined second look.
ARX works alongside the owner's legal, tax, valuation, and insurance professionals. The objective is not to replace trusted advisors; it is to help connect the moving pieces and surface issues that deserve attention.
STEP 1
Gather
Review the existing buy-sell agreement, ownership structure, insurance schedules, valuations, and related succession documents.
STEP 2
Stress-test
Model the intended outcome against current ownership, funding, valuation, tax considerations, and likely triggering events.
STEP 3
Identify
Flag structural gaps, outdated assumptions, coordination issues, and areas requiring legal, tax, valuation, or insurance analysis.
STEP 4
Coordinate
Work with the owner and professional advisors to evaluate practical alternatives and strengthen the continuity strategy.
WHAT WE REVIEW
One strategy. Multiple disciplines.
Business succession sits at the intersection of ownership, valuation, tax, insurance, and legal execution. Weakness in any one of those areas can change the result.
Buy-sell agreements
Triggering events, purchase mechanics, valuation language and funding alignment.
Life-insurance funding
Policy ownership, beneficiary design, coverage amount and intended use of proceeds.
Ownership & continuity
Control, transfer objectives, key-person dependencies and continuity assumptions.
Advisor coordination
Issues that should be evaluated with legal counsel, CPAs, valuation professionals and insurance specialists.
CONFIDENTIAL CONSULTATION
Find out whether your succession plan still works.
Start with a focused review of the structure you already have. We'll identify the questions that deserve answers before a triggering event forces them.