Asset structuring for managers: aligning personal assets and corporate strategy
The assets of managers are rarely separable from those of their company. Each strategic decision (fundraising, sale, transfer) has direct implications on one's personal situation. Aknin Avocats structures this asset in line with the stages of the company's life.
Cash out: monetize without going out
Cash out allows the founder or partner to sell part of his shares without leaving the company, as part of a financing round or a dedicated operation. The firm ensures that the transaction is:
- Compatible with Existing shareholders' agreement : preemption, approval, exit clauses
- Correctly legally structured, in coordination with the client's tax advice
- Accepted by incoming investors, so as not to weaken the dynamic of the emergence
Holding: centralize, protect, optimize
The creation of a holding company meets several simultaneous objectives:
- Centralize participations and organize the return of dividends in an advantageous fiscal framework (mother-daughter regime)
- Reinvesting cash resulting from a partial sale without immediate fiscal friction
- Protecting personal assets by distinguishing professional assets from private assets
- Preparing a transmission progressive, by donating holding shares rather than from the operating company
Dismemberment and transmission
Property dismemberment makes it possible to separate bare ownership and usufruct of titles, offering a powerful tool for:
- Transmit value to the heirs while maintaining control and income
- Reducing the tax base At the time of the donation, thanks to the discount on the bare ownership
- Organizing future governance without precipitating a change of control
Tax optimization
Prior to an exit or a fund raising, the firm analyzes the manager's overall asset situation in order to identify the applicable mechanisms (asset transfer, Dutreil pact, executive exemptions) and coordinate the legal strategy with the client's tax and asset advisors.
Structuring your assets does not mean avoiding taxes. It's organizing what you've built in order to dispose of it freely.
Why create a holding company before raising funds?
Creating a holding company beforehand makes it possible to organize the holding of shares in a dedicated structure, to facilitate a possible cash out during the financing round and to prepare for the exit under optimized fiscal conditions. A holding company created after the raising can lead to additional costs and delays.
What is the takeover mechanism?
Contribution-transfer consists in bringing one's shares to a holding company before selling them, making it possible to postpone the taxation of capital gain subject to reinvesting the proceeds in eligible assets. This mechanism requires compliance with strict conditions and rigorous monitoring over time.
When should you structure your assets?
As early as possible, ideally before events that make structuring urgent (lifting, exiting, succession). The more you anticipate, the more effective the tools available are. Acting urgently often requires suboptimal solutions.
Does the firm take care of the fiscal aspects of structuring?
The firm is involved in legal structuring: creating a holding company, drafting deeds of gift, setting up dismemberment. For strictly fiscal aspects, he works in coordination with the client's tax consultants and accountants in order to ensure the overall consistency of the transaction.
Is asset structuring reserved for large fortunes?
No It concerns any manager who has built value in his company and who wishes to organize it, whether to protect his assets, prepare for a transfer or optimize an exit. The tools are adaptable regardless of the size of the asset.
Holding, dismemberment, transfer, Dutreil pact. The firm deciphers the wealth structuring mechanisms that concern managers who are preparing for a lifting, an exit or a transfer.
