Do I Need a Financial Adviser to Sell My Business?

You are not legally required to use a financial adviser to sell your business, plenty of owners complete a sale with just an accountant and a solicitor. But “can you” and “should you” are different questions. For most owners a financial planner earns their fee many times over, because they answer the question the deal team does not: what does this sale mean for the rest of your life? This is general information, not personal advice.

It helps to see selling a business as two connected projects. There is the transaction, valuing, marketing, negotiating and drafting the deal, and there is your personal financial future, which the transaction is meant to secure. Different professionals lead on each, and the best results come from them working together rather than in isolation. The mistake many owners make is to assemble a strong deal team, complete the sale, and only then start thinking about what to do with the money, by which point several of the most valuable planning options have already closed off.

Who does what in a business sale

The accountant, solicitor and broker are focused on getting you the best deal on the day. The financial planner is focused on you, before completion, they model whether the price will actually fund the retirement you want, as we set out in the business exit planning guide; after completion, they turn the lump sum into durable income and manage the tax that follows. Crucially, they are the only one of the four whose relationship with you is meant to last for decades, long after the deal team has moved on to their next transaction. That long horizon changes the advice: a planner is not trying to close a deal, but to make the proceeds last a lifetime.

Where a planner adds the most value

A good financial planner earns their keep in the areas a deal team rarely touches:

• Answering “is it enough?”, stress-testing whether the net proceeds will fund your desired lifestyle for life, long before you accept an offer.
• Investing the proceeds, building a diversified plan across pensions, ISAs and other investments rather than leaving a fortune in cash losing value to inflation.
• Managing the tax that follows, a sale often replaces an inheritance-tax-relieved business with cash in your estate, so inheritance tax planning suddenly matters.
• Timing pension contributions, using your £60,000 annual allowance and carry-forward around the sale to shelter proceeds tax-efficiently.
• Coordinating the team, making sure the deal is structured with your whole financial picture in mind, not just the headline price.

Is it worth the fee?

Ongoing advice typically costs around 0.5% to 1% of the invested assets a year, and some planners charge a fixed fee for the exit-planning work itself. On a seven-figure sale, that is a modest fraction of the tax and investment returns in play, and the questions of whether to sell at all, how to structure it, and what to do with the money afterwards are exactly where good advice pays for itself. Our answer on whether a financial adviser is worth it looks at the trade-off in more depth, and how to choose an adviser explains what to look for.

The key is to engage a planner before you go to market, not after the money has landed, so the deal is shaped around your goals from the start. A planner brought in early can influence how the price is split between cash and deferred payments, how much you contribute to a pension in the run-up, and whether a spouse should hold shares, decisions that are impossible to revisit once contracts are signed. The free Vetted Wealth service matches you with an independently vetted, FCA-regulated adviser through business exit and succession planning, with local hubs across Devon and Cornwall. This is information and a matching service, not personal advice; investments can fall as well as rise.

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