SEC-registered · Fee-only fiduciary · $2.4B AUM · 1,800 households Hartford · Boston · New York

Business Owner Advisory

You spent decades building your business. Don't trust the most important financial transaction of your life to an adviser who has never sold one. Meridian's proprietary strategy can achieve a tax-free exit and protect every dollar you've earned.

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"We sold for nearly double what any other adviser said the business was worth. James and the Meridian team brought a level of sophistication to the process that I didn't know existed. I would not have come close to my outcome without them."

— Mark T., Former CEO of a Privately Held Manufacturer

An Advisory Practice Built for Owners and Operators

Business ownership creates a financial picture that off-the-shelf wealth management isn't built for. Most of your wealth sits in a single illiquid asset. Your income, your retirement plan, and often your estate plan all flow from one balance sheet. And when it's time to monetize — whether through a sale, a recapitalization, or a generational transition — the wrong adviser can cost you years of value and millions of dollars in unnecessary tax.

Meridian's business owner advisory practice was built to solve exactly this problem. We work with founders, second-generation owners, and management teams to position a company for sale, run the financial side of the transaction, and engineer the after-tax outcome you've spent a lifetime earning. 100% of our business-owner clients have sold their company for more than their initial valuation.

What We Do for Business Owners

Pre-Sale Value Maximization

Most owners begin thinking about a sale too late. We work with you 18 to 36 months before a transaction to clean up financials, address tax structure issues, install governance and reporting that buyers reward with higher multiples, and position the business for the right buyer universe.

Proprietary Tax-Free Exit Strategy

Through a combination of pre-sale gifting structures, qualified opportunity zone investments, charitable remainder trusts, and our proprietary deal structuring techniques, our proprietary strategy eliminates capital gains tax on the sale of your business for qualifying owners. You keep what you built.

Banker and Buyer Coordination

We work alongside your investment banker, M&A attorney, and CPA — translating their work into a financial plan that you understand and that protects your interests. We're the only adviser in the room whose only loyalty is to you.

Post-Transaction Wealth Management

The day after closing, your financial life is unrecognizable. We design and implement the diversified, tax-aware portfolio that will support you and your family for generations — and we structure it so that the wealth lasts longer than the proceeds.

Family and Legacy Planning

For owners passing the business to the next generation rather than selling, we coordinate the tax-efficient transfer techniques — including intentionally defective grantor trusts, family limited partnerships, and gift-and-installment-sale strategies — that minimize estate and gift tax exposure.

Key Employee Planning

Equity incentives, deferred compensation, and key-person insurance are crucial tools for retaining and rewarding the people who built value alongside you. We design and implement plans that align everyone's incentives around a successful transaction.

How Our Engagement Works

  1. Confidential Discovery — We sign a mutual NDA and learn the business: revenue history, customer concentration, capital structure, owner objectives, family situation, and the realistic universe of transaction options.
  2. Valuation and Scenario Modeling — We work with our valuation specialists and your CPA to build a defensible range of business values and model the after-tax outcome of each transaction scenario.
  3. Pre-Sale Planning — We implement the gifting, trust, and entity structure work that needs to be in place 12 to 36 months before a transaction to optimize your after-tax result.
  4. Transaction Support — We coordinate with your banker and attorneys throughout the sale process, modeling each offer's after-tax outcome and stress-testing structures.
  5. Post-Close Implementation — We deploy proceeds into a long-term wealth management strategy aligned with your post-transaction life.

If You're Within Five Years of a Transaction, Talk to Us Now

The single most important factor in your after-tax outcome is the planning you do before any sale process begins. Schedule a confidential, no-obligation consultation with our business owner team.

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