TRANSACTION & TRANSITION PLANNING

Services Include:

- Exit Planning

- Succession Planning

- Acquisitions

Whether you are planning for the eventual sale of your business to a third party through a prudent exit strategy; transitioning your business to family members, or acquiring an entity for your business, M3 Advisors specialize in assisting Business Owners with:

• Structuring your business and finances to maximize value
• Managing the team of advisors required in the valuation, sale, transfer or acquisition of the business
• Determining required financial targets and funding
• Structuring ownership to minimize cost
• Increasing the probability of a beneficial transaction and transition

COMPENSATION CONSULTING

Services Include:

- Executive Benefits

- Incentive Plans

- Ownership Income

Business owners and key executives face tax issues and retirement saving challenges due to restrictive legislation that dramatically limits the amount of income that can be deferred or contributed to the company’s qualified retirement plan. For this reason, a growing number of companies are turning to nonqualified deferred compensation and incentive plans to augment owners’ and key executives’ retirement benefits and overcome many of the regulatory restrictions that apply to qualified retirement plans.

Objective Advice and Advocacy

As professionals with many years of experience in Owner compensation strategies, our role is to serve as your company’s advocate—helping you define your specifications and compare existing programs with your current goals. We help you orchestrate the plan; assemble the required specialists; coordinate arrangements with your legal, accounting and internal advisors; and guide every aspect of your plan’s development.

RISK MANAGEMENT

Services Include:

- Buy-sell Arrangements

- Captive Insurance Companies

- Key Person Life and Disability Insurance

Protecting Your Business Partnership

Managing the risks to your business requires:

• Expertise to structure the correct program
• Commitment to regularly update the structure to meet changing needs
• Integration with the overall business plan to maintain financial flexibility

Three risk management areas that require constant diligence include:

• The buy-sell arrangements as part of the operating agreement or by-laws
• The business’ capability to self-insure its risk
• How the business protects itself against the loss of key people

EXPENSES VS. RESERVES

The traditional view of risk management as being an expense is outdated and no longer accurate. Today, the majority of our planning with businesses focuses on methods for accumulating reserves in an efficient manner instead of increasing expenses.

Over time, reserves create opportunities to help facilitate positive transactions for the business and its Owners. Of course, there are still situations where the business’ best method for allocating funds is to simply buy coverage. However, in those situations, the purchase should be evaluated in light of whether the coverage can be leveraged to assist in multiple areas.

WEALTH MANAGEMENT

Services Include:

- Investment Strategy

- Asset Allocation

Business Owners are investors by nature and develop wealth by allocating funds toward a variety of assets. Their financial statements are likely to include investments in real estate (buildings, home, raw land, etc.), timber, other businesses, collectibles, as well as liquid securities (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, etc.).

Advice on how to allocate their liquid securities should include these other assets. Failure to do so will likely result in the Business Owner taking too much or too little risk with his/her liquid investments and achieving a sub-optimum outcome.

Wealth management is the process for systematically investing and allocating funds in a manner that has the highest likelihood of achieving the targeted risk and rates of return.

In today’s world of mega mutual funds, hedge funds and private equity, it is illogical that an individual investing his/her own money is operating on the same playing field as a money manager who invests billions and is performing onsite due-diligence on each holding multiple times a year.

However, selecting the right money manager and creating the right allocation that takes into account your overall financial situation is challenging and requires expertise. With that in mind, our role is to help our clients manage the wealth that they have accumulated so they can do what they do best…run their business.

Watch our video to learn how our balanced approach to asset allocation can help you optimize your investment portfolio..

WEALTH ACCUMULATION

Services Include:

- Accumulating Wealth for Retirement

- Tax Optimization

The ARC Process

Our unique ARC Process™ (“Achieving Retirement Clarity”) lays out a clear path for accumulating assets for retirement and covers three important checkpoints:

• Cashflow Management — directs how resources are earned, spent and saved.
• Wealth Accumulation — assesses your current financial position and identifies the most efficient path for reaching your goals for retirement as well as other needs such as children’s education.
• Income Protection — helps safeguard your path from obstacles that can prevent your financial goals from becoming reality.

Watch our video to learn how you can achieve clarity and peace of mind while building your retirement fund.

Tax Optimization

When planning for retirement, diversification typically references an investment allocation that incorporates various asset classes. However, a truly diversified investment strategy should go one level deeper, taking into consideration the tax treatment of one’s retirement savings. We call this Diversification 2.0.

Traditionally, individuals accrue the bulk of their retirement savings in tax deferred vehicles like a 401(k), but this one-dimensional savings strategy limits one’s flexibility to mitigate tax liability during retirement.

Diversification 2.0 involves accumulating investment savings in tax-deferred, tax-favored, and taxable accounts during our working years. Implementing a customized Diversification 2.0 strategy gives investors the ability to better control this issue by making intentional withdrawals from various retirement accounts with different tax characteristics.

RETIREMENT INCOME

Services Include:

- Managing Wealth in Retirement

The RISK Process

Most Business Owners focus on accumulating enough assets for retirement. However, the biggest risks facing retirees occur during the income distribution phase when we retire and begin to live on our retirement savings Our unique RISK Process™ (“Retirement Income Survival Kit”) simplifies the complexity of post-retirement planning and guides you through our effective, time tested approach which:

• Transitions your retirement savings from traditional asset allocation to income allocation
• Determines your sustainable withdrawal rate throughout retirement
• Addresses the key risk factors you face in retirement including: market conditions, sequence of returns, inflation, liquidity, longevity, taxation, health, and legacy risks

Watch our video to learn how the RISK Process™ can help you safely navigate the income risks and opportunities in retirement.