CPABC Industry Update Winter 2014 | Page 12

When to Start Your Succession Plan By Mark Hoag W The following advice will answer the above questions and help determine when to start your succession plan. W your plans •  hat areto retire and for retirement? – When are you planning what does retirement look like to If you have a business partner, it is important to draft an appropriate shareholder agreement in the early stages of the business. There are an overwhelming number of items to address when starting a business, and succession planning is often forgotten. However, what happens when one partner wants to exit the business before the other? Does the remaining partner have the right of first refusal to purchase the shares? What if the partners cannot agree on a price for the shares? These questions, along with many others, can be addressed in a shareholder agreement. Leaving these issues unresolved until the time when someone decides to leave the business can be time consuming and cos K