Principal Elaine Pantel & Partner Doug Hartkorn represented Shimmerman Penn's industry team for Architects, Engineers and Designers at the RAIC/OAA's Festival of Architecture in Ottawa in May. Elaine and Doug presented a Lunch and Learn session on Forward Planning for Architecture Firms.
Shimmerman Penn is a long-time supporters of the architecture and design community and have been actively providing educational programs, seminars and events and sponsoring and supporting industry groups such as the OAA. We returned as OAA conference sponsors again this year.
Our team consults with firms on many topics such as succession planning, tax planning and corporate restructuring for owners and their families, performance benchmarking, and owner compensation strategies.
Elaine and Doug discussed their experiences of working with the founders and ownership groups of architecture firms, focusing on ownership succession and integrating a transition plan as their firms' long-term growth strategy. Founders are thinking about legacy and continuity of earnings, and associates and senior professional staff are thinking about making a commitment at a fair price given their contributions to their firms during their years of employment.
Given this experience, Elaine and Doug gave some real-life examples to attendees of our Lunch & Learn such as:
- common valuation methodologies
- an example of how to arrive at your buy-in price based on a consultative process with the owners
- a plan for financing the purchase
- guidance on the tax issues relating to structuring a succession plan
- employee share purchase plans.
After the presentation, there was time for questions. One attendee asked how to go about mentoring those coming in to ownership. As Doug said, "All of the spreadsheets will amount to nothing if you don't take the time to mentor upcoming and new owners. This can take a good five to seven years, but then you'll know that your investment is in good hands will have future strength."
Another attendee asked how much success we have you seen in working through these issues with our clients. The answer is: quite a bit. We provided some real life (anonymous) examples of how we have worked with our clients to help them achieve success in creating and implementing transition strategies.
Contact Elaine or Doug to hear more about the presentation or to ask specific questions about the topics they covered.
