A privately owned business is more than just a way to earn income. It is a vision, a dream that was nourished and grown into a reality through boldness, endless hours of work and sacrifice. It is something that becomes an integral part of not only a business owner’s wealth, but also their life.
We understand that closely held business owners generally have extremely complex lives with extremely important demands pulling them in different directions. They often have to balance their business goals with their personal goals, family goals, charitable goals and their aspiration to leave their mark on the world and affect societal change. Balancing these objectives and integrating them into a powerful wealth plan can be difficult. As a result of conflicting investment objectives, many closely held business owners end up doing nothing. They often find themselves in concentrated stocks and cash, waiting until their lives calm down…which it never does.
This approach can be very expensive and at times catastrophic, when unforeseen events happen. In the tech bubble, tech owner’s fortunes vanished in a matter of days for those who had not properly managed their risks. Similarly significant value has been completely lost due to unexpected death or disability of business principals, who never found the time to build strategies to protect all the hard work, sweat, worry and hours they spent building their companies.
The founder of Stonehaven has extensive personal and professional experience with closely held businesses. Her prior work experience included a unit dedicated to highly successful owners of closely held businesses. She has also been personally involved in a robust family-owned business portfolio and personally has experienced the demands of that lifestyle from acquisition phase to exit strategy implementation. At Stonehaven, we understand that an effective wealth strategy for those who own businesses must take into consideration the impact on the business. We understand the need for flexibility, responsiveness, and the need to streamline implementation time demands.
Charlise B. Whiteside, our founder, has experience in business strategy, negotiations, and highly sophisticated wealth transfer strategies, which are useful to aid clients who are wrestling with how to maintain family owned ventures, transfer ownership, create joint ventures, determining whether to go public or sell their businesses.
We will work with you to help you determine how to balance your conflicting objectives and strategically structure an integrated wealth management strategy. Through delegation and partnership, we offer our clients a viable solution to finding the time to strategically manage their assets while balancing the needs of the business, personal, and community commitments.
We are happy to develop a plan tailored to your unique set of circumstances, concerns, and dreams. Please do not hesitate to call us 978-430-0150.