COMMERCE Magazine: The Recipe for Success Can Be Complicated by Relationships

Steven A. Loeb was featured in a COMMERCE Magazine editorial roundtable alongside accounting, banking and legal executives providing financial, legal and management best practices and strategies for New Jersey-based family businesses.

He explains, "Operating in today’s uncertain and tumultuous business climate, and having to cope with changes in tax law and the dynamics of business succession, family business owners seek flexibility and foresight from their legal counsel. Furthermore, given the amount of private equity in the market, making decisions on acquisitions and sales and protecting the business from creditors and predators is critical. Against this backdrop, several strategies have proven invaluable to our clients – including rollover equity transactions in cases where clients are interested in selling parts or the whole of their family business on a tax-deferred basis but wish to maintain some connection with the business; developing SERP/stock bonus plans to retain key employees; and creating trusts to ensure that the business can be transferred without significant tax implications as well as ensuring that the business remains in the family bloodline. Tactics such as these have helped ensure the continuity and prosperity of several of our privately held, family-owned clients."