Thinking Time
My compliments of the season to you all, and I hope you are enjoying a relaxing break from the office. This is the time of year I always call “Thinking time”, the office is quiet, the phones don’t need attention, we’re at home, and hopefully spending quality time with family and friends.
However, If you’re like me, in this week after Christmas and leading up to the new year, you’ll eventually start to reflect on the old year that is finishing, and what the new year might bring. It’s a time for reflection and possibly planning. Being old, I still receive a paper diary each Christmas and I like to start filling it in with plans ready for my return to work.
We’ve had another good year at Harrison Spence, the IFA consultancy side of our business has been very busy in the last few months helping with the new Consumer Duty rules and our work helping IFAs increase revenue without marketing or investment in technological changes is ever popular.
On the Mergers & Acquisitions front we continue to assist business owners achieve life changing capital events. The good news for anyone planning to retire next year is that acquirers are agnostic to market conditions; the recent stock market fluctuations and general economic conditions are not a concern, there are some excellent deals available now.
I have noticed in the last 12 months that the style of deal we are arranging is changing from the traditional sell and retire to a more bespoke deal based on the owners or owners’ individual needs.
And on this topic, I was interested to read in Globe IFA magazine recently that 2023, may be the year of phased retirement.
They refer to an article in Money Week stating that almost half (48%) of over-55s now plan to take a “phased” retirement. More than a third (34%) of over-55s still in employment have already begun the shift away from full-time work and responsibility. Affordability does contribute to why people have to work longer.
In my experience with IFAs, affordability is not normally a consideration for continuing to work, when I complete my “Fact find” of understanding why an IFA wants to sell a business often its mentioned “I don’t know what I want to do next “and “I feel I can still be useful”
Selling only part of a business (typically the part that’s not liked or not economical to run any more) or selling and staying on in some capacity is growing more popular. Also, there’s something very appealing about banking a big pay out for your business, and still getting paid to stop that pay out diminishing!
As we all know, there are still around 20,000 IFAs over 50, and hopefully many still want to continue to work on some sort of basis. I’ve already highlighted in an article on our website, that the number of “Young IFAs” is very low and we need to do more in 2023 to attract people from all walks of life into our profession. Us older IFAs can do much to pass on our knowledge and experience to the next generation.
If 2023 is the year that you decide to make a change in your business life, please do give us a call, there are a number of ways that we can help you to structure a deal to suit your requirements, and as I have said on many occasions in the past, there is never only one option open to you.
On the consultancy side, one of my first questions to IFAs who are keen to develop their practice is “When you started the business is this how you imagined it would be.” Once we have got to the bottom of that, we can help put the business on the required trajectory