Who Should Be on Your Retirement Planning Team?
10/26/2024 (Updated: 2/25/2026)
Planning for retirement has multiple phases to it, especially when you own a business. As you get closer to your retirement date, there are several things you should consider, like:
- Who will take over your business?
- Will the business stay in the family or be sold to a third party?
- How will your business be transitioned to the next owner/operator?
- Who are the players you need on your retirement planning team to ensure a smooth business transition?
SouthState Wealth's Donna Murray covers all of these topics and more in this iteration of our Business Succession Planning video series.
View Transcript
Hi. I’m Donna Murray, the Director of Financial Planning for SouthState Private Wealth. If you own a family business and are getting close to retirement, there are several things you should consider.
First, you need to determine if you would you like to keep the business in the family or if would you rather sell to a third party. The balance of this short video will be about keeping it all in the family. We have other videos that delve into selling to a third party.
If you do want to keep it in the family, is there an obvious successor? If it’s truly a family business, hopefully another family member is already involved in the operations. If so, are they capable of owning and managing it? If not, you may want to consider hiring outsiders for key positions or as members of a board of directors.
Another important consideration is the timing of your retirement. Before you start making all those plans for traveling or spending time with the grandkids, you will need build in time to train competent successors who can maintain and grow the business.
Assuming you do have a family member who can be your successor, a key step is deciding how to transition that ownership to them while also providing an income stream for yourself in retirement.
- Depending on the profitability of the company and the financial strength of the family member, you could sell the business to them and take back a note for the loan. The loan payments could provide an income stream for your retirement.
- You could also choose to gift the business to the family member, but then you would need to look for retirement income from other sources.
You also need to think about family members not in the business. In many cases, when mom or dad decide to retire, there are some kids who want nothing to do with the business. They’ve already started their careers in other fields and aren’t really interested in changing midstream. Then there might be one or two kids who do want to run the business. How do you make things fair and equal for all your kids, while also ensuring the business can continue? There are several ways you can do this through gifts during your lifetime or at death.
Which brings me to my final point, as you begin this retirement journey, it’s important to have a team of professionals on your side. You will need your CPA, your estate attorney and of course your financial advisor at SouthState. We look forward to walking down this path with you.
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