How We Help
Purpose Owned supports businesses to design ownership transitions that ensure ongoing independence, mission focus and positive impact in the world.
We support exiting business owners to assess viability, support the sale of the business into a Purpose Trust and set up a lasting governance model.
We take a holistic approach, using our experience we guide clients through all the necessary steps to evaluate and choose the best fit options for their ownership transition.
Our services are customized to the specific needs each client. Our core Ownership Transition Services include:
Discovery
As leading experts in steward ownership and Purpose Trusts, we provide tailored Education Sessions to businesses, investors, and policy makers. ‘Our sessions build a baseline understanding of how these emerging legal ownership forms enable companies to protect purpose, remain independent over the long term, share economic rewards broadly, attract aligned financing and investment.
Key Questions: What is purpose ownership? Is it good fit for my company? What are examples of the spectrum of companies who do it and how they design it?
Visioning & Viability
We support businesses with Ownership Succession Planning explore your ideal vision for the future of the business, and to understand your personal needs for exit/liquidity. We design an optional ownership structures that support both the “heart” of the business its mission, vision and culture, as well as its “head” including brand, competitive business strategy and financial viability.
We help with:
Governance Design—defining the purpose that is being enshrined, the stakeholders, and how voting and economic rights are allocated.
Financial Modeling and Recapitalization Strategy —to meet founder/investors liquidity needs and timeline, on balance with the business ability to meet future obligations and generate sufficient returns to invest in the purpose and stakeholders.
Key Questions: What is the purpose of the Trust, what and whom do you want to benefit overtime? Who are the best people to govern the Trust and the Company operations? What safeguards are in place? What is the leadership succession plan? What is the optimal deal structure, financing and recapitalization plan that will be most cost-effective/tax efficient for all parties? What is the best timing of the transaction? Can the business afford it with its current cash flows? What financing does the business need for growth and reserves? How will the business be recapitalized?
Implementation
In the final stage, we help clients to select a team of Attorney’s, CPAs, Trustees to execute the transaction. We document all the key decisions on governance and deal structuring, to be used for drafting legal and transaction documents, we provide templates and examples to save time and cost. We act as executive-level project managers coordinating all the partners to execute the transaction. In addition we can help secure debt and equity financing.
Other Services We Offer:
Leadership Succession
We have experience with founder and leader transitions in closely held mission driven companies. We can advise on Succession Planning including facilitation of org chart redesign and key leadership recruitment and selection to ensure a solid team is ready to carry through the ownership transition and beyond.
Change Management & Communications
We provide change management and communications support to clients for internal audiences to ensure engagement and buy-in. We can also help with leveraging ownership transitions to enhance your brand position. We help clients develop public facing materials, messaging and with media support.
Profit Sharing & Cashflow Waterfall Design
After meeting financing obligations, Purpose Trust owned companies put their free cashflows to toward the purpose and stakeholders. We help clients refresh and/or design a new Profit Sharing Framework that rewards performance and fosters the company culture. We support with designing a Cashflow Waterfall to provide guidance to the leadership about prioritization and uses of company cash both ensure company resiliency (e.g. investments in strategy, acquisitions, assets, rainy day savings) as well as furtherance of the mission (e.g. discounts to educators, community donations).
Outside Capital
If you clients are interested in raising outside capital - either debt or equity - we can assist with a range of services including debt RFPs, deal structuring, term sheets and offering documents, negotiation, and fundraising.