Buying a Business Using Retirement Funds - An Example

Put your money to work! Invest it in your own business and let your money work for you! You can use cash from your 401(k) or IRA account to purchase a business without incurring early distribution penalties, with no taxes, no loan repayment, and no hassle.

For example, a Texas resident using $100,000 from a qualified retirement fund can keep the extra 31% that would have been paid in taxes, leaving an additional $31,000 to fund the new business by adopting a transfer trust plan versus withdrawing the funds outright.

With the adoption of a pension transfer trust, you are allowed to convert 401(k) and IRA funds into privately-held stock in your new business. Pension and tax advisors can provide all the specific components necessary to make sure the transaction is in compliance with all applicable IRS Code Sections, ERISA Law, and Department of Labor Letter Rulings.

The following table uses a simple example to compare the costs associated with early withdrawal of retirement funds for the purpose of injecting the cash into a business acquistion and paying the related taxes and penalties to withdrawing the same funds but adopting a transfer trust plan:



For more complete information on using qualified retirement funds to purchase a business, you may wish to read this article, Retirement Funds Can Finance A Business Acquisition, and visit websites such as these:

Pension Transfer Advisors
Walker Advisory Associates
BeneTrends, Inc.
DRDA, P.C.

The purpose of this article is to alert prospective buyers of alternatives for financing the purchasing of a business and not to provide tax advice. Contact proper legal or tax professionals for more information on this subject.

Thinking About Buying a Business? Do You Have the Right Attitude Genes?

Are you thinking about taking the leap of faith into being part of the self-employed -- into business ownership?

If you are one of those people who have long yearned to be self-employed, to call your own shots and design your own destiny, you must break through all those yeah-buts that have been stopping you. Business ownership may not be for everyone, but it is definitely the only way to go for those who have realized the American Dream by having achieved a satisfying lifestyle through business ownership. Successful business owners share certain character traits that helped them get there. They have what it takes to overcome obstacles -- to assess situations -- a can-do attitude.

First, let's discuss three types of attitudes.

1) The Self-Protective Type -- This person mostly wants to be comfortable. They work hard to avoid risk, play it safe, fly under the radar, avoid pain and seek a routine comfort level. This probably describes most people to some degree. We all feel certain levels of comfort in maintaining the status quo, not making waves or shaking things up. But if this state of being is overly cautious and cannot be overcome, business ownership might not be in the cards. Being self-employed equates to being self-sufficient. It required that you get out of your comfort zone and be confident in your ability. While most people might think it’s more risky to work for profit versus a paycheck, as the millions of people who are fired and laid off every year in the corporate world are painfully aware, being an employee is hardly low risk.

2) The Self-Involved Type -- This person believes, to a large degree, that they are the smartest, the best, biggest, fastest, and strongest. Their ego can become their downfall. These individuals are focused, systematic, and successful goal setters -- but they can have trouble as enterprise builders. They may not be willing to listen to others that would be in the position to advise them, such as accountants, attorneys, financial advisors, or other business experts. Due to their inability to empathize with others, they are unable to inspire and lead. Therefore, they cannot piece together the building blocks that make up the foundation of a successful business operation -- a group of individuals working together as a team. Management and interpersonal skills and the ability to delegate must be written somewhere in the DNA of an owner of a thriving business.

3) The Self-Esteemed Type -- These people have a creative spirit and inner motivation that drives them to achieve the thing that inspires them. They accept personal responsibility and believe where there is a problem, they can find the solution, yet they know what they don't know and the skills they don't possess and fully intend to employ others to fill the gaps. They have an understanding of what makes them tick and a natural inclination to be accountable for doing the right thing with honesty and judgement. And they have faith that others will do the same.

None of these types is the stand-alone secret of business ownership. It is the right combination, or genetic make up, of these attitudes that is the stuff that successful business owners are made of. For instance, self-protectiveness is a natural instinct for a reason. We would not survive without it. But this "attitudinal" gene must be tempered and cannot be so dominant that it cannot be overcome. A measure of risk must be allowed for if one is to take the "leap of faith." By performing a self-assessment prior to embarking on the pursuit of a business acquisition and performing proper due diligence on any given business of interest, one can achieve an acceptable level of risk for their individual situation when going into a new business venture.

Similarly, an overly self-involved attitude can be a road block in the path to success. Like a horse with blinders on, this type cannot see what is around them and they trudge forward with no awareness of, care for, or connection to how others are affected by their actions. Yes, it takes intellect, inner strength, and an appropriate level of pride in oneself to own and run a business. However, an exaggerated sense of self-importance and conceit detracts from the ability to make sound decisions on business operations and effectively hire and manage employees and instill confidence. If one doesn't have respect towards others and their abilities, those in this attitudinal group are destined to be a one-person show with limited growth potential. Running a business is a team sport with a leader at the helm that can blaze a trail that others are willing to follow.

As for the self-esteemed, they already possess, to a large degree, many natural character traits of an entrepreneur. One of the dangers for this creative attitudinal type, however, is financially overextending themselves in pursuit of their goal. They must borrow from the self-involved type -- practice restraint and focus on growing the business using a systematic methodology -- instead of branching out in too many directions at once. Another fault, if you can call it a fault, is a tendency to believe that everyone in their employ will perform with their own same gung-ho attitude and entrust too much to others. This is where a measure of self-protectiveness would come in handy. This attitudinal type might do well to err on the side of caution more frequently in the areas of finance and trust.

So, the point to be made here is to avoid extremes. Basically, think long-term, have realistic goals, and focus on the big picture. A healthy level of confidence in yourself instills confidence in the people you serve, customers, employees, and partners alike. The demeanor you carry within yourself will be the driver that can raise that proverbial bar of those around you, getting everyone to join with you in reaching higher. It is very much about our work ethic and the self-awareness and integrity we bring to what we do. It’s a matter of deliberate choice. It’s a matter of attitude.

Read these two previous posts on this subject:
Find Out if You Got What it Takes to Own a Business
Key Characteristics of Successful Business Owners

Houston is the Ultimate Dynamist City - Open for Business

Houston is Booming -- It's Not Only the Weather That's Hot Down Here. And it is "blooming" as well. As a further testament to the greatness of Houston and its buccaneering nature, read this Chronicle Op-Ed article by Tory Gattis.

Viewpoints, Outlook Section Houston Chronicle

June 10, 2007

BLOOMTOWN HOUSTON
Ours is an opportunity city with a style uniquely its own. Let's quit wishing we were something else and let Houston be Houston.
By TORY GATTIS

Houston is at a turning point. With a boost from noted urbanist Joel Kotkin, our city has begun recasting its national reputation from "that ugly, sprawling, weird city without zoning" to the exemplar city for "Opportunity Urbanism," a compelling new paradigm for cities in the 21st century. This paradigm asserts that the fundamental (but recently forgotten) core mission of cities is to accelerate the upward social and economic mobility of its inhabitants.

This may sound obvious to the average person, but in the wonkish world of urban policy and planning, the themes of the past decade have been environmentalism (smart growth), pedestrian aesthetics (new urbanism), and meeting the desires of the educated elites (the "creative class"). Each of these movements raised important points— the need for urban core renewal and infill, a lack of quality pedestrian spaces and neighborhoods, and talent as the new basis of global competition, respectively. But they also went a step too far — denying suburban homeownership to those who desire it, demonizing the car and excessively focusing on attracting a narrow class of outside talent by being "hip and cool" instead of developing skills broadly in the existing population. Improving life for the typical resident got lost in the clamor.

What do we mean by "improving life" and "upward social and economic mobility?" Kotkin's research team, of which I was a part, identified four enablers: additional education for self or children; affordable homeownership; entrepreneurship; and getting a superior job, better matched to the jobholder's skills with improved productivity and pay. Urban policies and planning can have a direct effect on each of these drivers.

How can a city make more of these positive changes happen for more people? Our prescription — and Houston's great strength — revolves around the theme of maximizing residents' "opportunity zone."

What constitutes a rich environment for these four enablers to do their positive work? The more education, job, start-up, or affordable home options they have within their personal travel-time/cost tolerance, the more likely most people are to take advantage of them. That's their opportunity zone, and Houston has managed to maximize it in four key ways.

The first and most obvious way to expand the opportunity zone is transportation mobility, whether by car or transit. What parts of the city can people access in 10, 20, 30 or more minutes? That represents their education, job and homeownership opportunities, as well as their potential customer and employee base if they decide to start a business. The longer the travel time, the less likely they are to take advantage of any given option. Most critically, mobility determines access to affordable housing within a reasonable commute. Houston has invested aggressively in congestion reduction and transportation infrastructure, especially freeways.

In many cities, mobility investments have lost popularity in recent years, usually due to the lament that any new capacity "will just fill up eventually anyway." The benefits of increased capacity — like more access to more jobs and affordable housing for more people — are not obviously apparent, and therefore are often ignored, while the direct costs in money, neighborhood impacts and construction hassles are all too visible.

Local leaders need to do a much better job articulating the real value of these investments to residents and voters.

Another common belief is that freezing mobility infrastructure (or refocusing most resources on transit) will help curb suburban sprawl and return people to the core.

The reality is that employers will follow their employees to areas with good schools and affordable, high-quality housing if employees cannot reasonably commute to them from such places. The end result is a sprawling, vibrant suburban fringe with a stagnant core as jobs flee outward. And the biggest irony is that sprawl actually increases under such policies. Once employers have moved to the suburbs, employees then feel comfortable moving another half-hour beyond that into the exurban periphery. As long as employers stay in the core, sprawl has practical limits if employees want to maintain a reasonable commute.

The second key factor is maximizing the number of people and jobs inside the opportunity zone. People have been migrating to cities for hundreds of years for the simple reason that more people equals more opportunity. More people can support more education and employment options. Businesses have access to more potential customers and employees.

The implications for policy? Well, for one, growth is good, despite becoming more and more unfashionable in many cities. It creates more options and opportunities for more people — existing residents as well as newcomers. Studies have shown that larger cities generate more wealth and innovation per person. Another implication is that reasonable infill and density are also good. Growth, infill and density increase the number of people and jobs in a given opportunity zone.

More people and jobs in a given opportunity zone also mean more discretionary income in that zone, the economic fuel of opportunity, and the third driver of opportunity zone vitality. Discretionary income is defined by economists as income left over after the basic costs of living like housing, groceries, transportation, utilities, health care and taxes. This money can be spent directly on post-secondary education or training, endow the seed money to start a business, support a charity or provide the consumer purchasing power to support local businesses and start-ups that in turn provide jobs.

Maximizing the discretionary income in an opportunity zone involves maximizing incomes with high-paying jobs (traditional economic development, championed by the Greater Houston Partnership here), and minimizing the cost of living, which, in addition to low taxes, involves having the most competitive markets possible in goods and services providers as well as housing (with minimal supply constraints).

Discretionary income supports urban vibrancy and amenities such as restaurants, bars/nightclubs, museums, sports, arts, entertainment, shopping and other leisure activities — which in turn helps the city attract new high-paying jobs. The Zagat Survey notes that Houstonians dine out more frequently than residents of any other major U.S. city — 4.2 times per week on average, which is 30 percent above the national average and 24 percent above the average for New York City.

Our last major element for maximizing opportunity zones is minimal zoning, permitting and land-use regulations. These restrictions often increase commercial and residential costs, as well as preventing population density where there is housing demand.

Easy availability of affordable commercial space is critical to entrepreneurship. More commercial space also means more competition, lowering prices and increasing discretionary income. The same effect applies to residential space: The more there is, the more affordable it will be and, therefore, the more discretionary income that will be created.

Finally, minimizing these restrictions increases the vibrancy of the local construction industry, a good source of skilled and unskilled jobs that provide important rungs on a city's ladder of upward social mobility.

So, if Houston is doing these things better than other cities, what have been the results?

One measurable result: Houston's population in hard-core poverty areas fell by 107,272 (47.8 percent) during the 1990s, one of the largest urban declines, according to the Brookings Institution. Another good indicator can be found in Stephen Klineberg's Houston Area Survey, which notes that 83 percent of residents said Houston is a "much better" or "slightly better" place to live than other U.S. metros (up from 78 percent in 2005). Eighty-five percent of Houstonians also believe that "if you work hard in this city, you will eventually succeed." That's some pretty impressive happiness and optimism in our city.

These policies also have kept our cost of living extremely low. The most recent Greater Houston Partnership economic report notes that the cost of living in Houston is 12 percent below the nationwide average for 293 urban areas, and 22 percent below the average for 23 metropolitan statistical areas with more than 2 million residents.

Houston owes this advantage largely to relatively inexpensive housing. Houston housing costs, as measured in early 2007, were 25 percent below the nationwide average and 43 percent below the major metro average. Houston also enjoys the lowest grocery prices among the major metros, 16 percent below the nationwide average.

But the most impressive result of our data analysis is that Houston may be able to legitimately claim the highest standard of living among major metropolitan areas in America, and possibly the world, in terms of the lifestyle that can be afforded on the median income.

According to the Census Bureau, the average payroll per employee in Harris County was $46,714 in 2005; 21 percent above the national average of $38,539. Combine that with a cost of living 22 percent below average for the 23 largest metros in America, and our cost-of-living adjusted incomes are among the highest in the country and the world. Other cities, like New York and San Francisco, have higher average incomes, but also a much higher cost of living. There are also many cities with a lower cost of living, but they also have much lower average incomes. Houston has managed to find the "sweet spot" of high productivity and high incomes combined with a competitive, affordable cost of living.

Despite this great success, Houston still faces one large challenge and another subtle risk. First, the great challenge is to provide quality education to large numbers of low-income and minority children — the first critical step on the opportunity ladder. The Houston Independent School District, among others, has made great strides addressing this need with better accountability and innovative partnerships with top charters like YES and KIPP. But more must be done, including addressing near-50 percent high school dropout rates, by providing more programs tailored to non-college-bound teens who need marketable job skills.

The risk we face now is failing to recognize our own uniqueness — what makes us special versus the highly controlling, bureaucratic approach of other cities around the world. We risk diluting our distinctiveness as we try to emulate others, especially when it comes to creeping government control.

The best way of summing up this difference between opportunity cities like Houston and others comes from a dust-jacket description of the book The Future and its Enemies by Virginia Postrel:

"[Postrel] shows how and why unplanned, open-ended trial and error— not conformity to one central vision — is the key to human betterment. Thus, the true enemies of humanity's future are those who insist on prescribing outcomes in advance, circumventing the process of competition and experiment in favor of their own preconceptions and prejudices. Some prefer a pre-industrial past, while others envision a bureaucratically engineered future, but all share a devotion to what she calls 'stasis,' a controlled, uniform society that changes only with permission from some central authority. On the other side is an emerging coalition in support of what Postrel calls 'dynamism': an open-ended society where creativity and enterprise, operating under predictable rules, generate progress in unpredictable ways. Dynamists are united not by a single political agenda but by an appreciation for such complex evolutionary processes as scientific inquiry, market competition, artistic development and technological invention. Entrepreneurs and artists, scientists and legal theorists, cultural analysts and computer programmers, dynamists are, says Postrel, 'the party of life.' "

Houston is the ultimate "dynamist" city, with a pioneering urban model to be proud of and promote to others. We're a city that's always self-renewing, with innovations like voluntary deed restrictions instead of zoning, which push controls down to the neighborhood level instead of a giant centralized bureaucracy.

In a global economy that has uniformly embraced free markets as the best way to fight poverty and provide opportunity, Houston is one of the few cities to bring that mind-set to urban development vs. the predominant centralized-control standard. We need to continue to refine and improve that model, including innovative market-oriented approaches.

Most importantly, we must deeply weave this "Open City of Opportunity" identity into our civic DNA at all levels so the city continues to strengthen what makes us distinctive. That "brand," which has been promoted by Mayor Bill White for many years, best sums up our friendliness, hospitality, entrepreneurial energy, minimal regulations (including no zoning), open-mindedness, diversity, affordability, social mobility, optimism, and charity (especially after Hurricane Katrina).

Let us declare the end of Houston's inferiority complex, and the beginning of an era of deep regional pride as a city that is home to the flag-bearers for Opportunity Urbanism.

Gattis coordinated the Opportunity Urbanism study team and writes the Houston Strategies weblog.

Small Business Ownership - The Path to Millionaire Status?

Something interesting happened at the bank yesterday. Sadly, it wasn’t that I noticed an extra $100,000 in my account. I was at the teller window and the young guy next to me was probably in his mid twenties, with his little toddler in tow. He was inquiring about the best way to set up regular $25,000 deposits. After a few minutes, he left and the middle aged woman who was the next customer at the window wanted to put $75 from her credit card into her checking account. I would assume this was to avoid bouncing a check.

This dichotomy was very interesting to me. These two individuals were obviously at very different places in their financial lives. It brilliantly illustrates the importance of proper financial health. The young man was, from outward appearance, not much different economically from the woman. In fact, the woman was more nicely dressed than the man was, yet was seemingly a gnat’s whisker away from financial disaster, living paycheck to paycheck. The other person however, was exploring the best way to deposit fairly large amounts of money on a regular basis. One would expect he was doing something differently financially than the woman who was living paycheck.

From what I was able to discern (not that I was listening, but when you hear “regular $25,000 deposits” from someone that age, it makes your ears perk up), he ran his own small business. That brings up the statistic that 80% of American millionaires started their own business. Actually, Georgia State University marketing professor Thomas Stanley, who has been studying the affluent in America for about 30 years, says his research indicates you are an astonishing ten times more likely to become a millionaire if you own your own business.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, small business owners are the largest class of millionaires; larger than investors, executives and those who got lucky and inherited their money. The report also had this little tidbit if information. It wasn’t the running and profiting from the operation of their small business that made most of these business owners wealthy, although the man at the bank may achieve that status. Actually, most of the small business owners made their fortunes when they sold their businesses.

Many of these businesses are being bought by retiring baby boomers who are cashing in their retirement plans to be their own bosses, after toiling for years under the thumb of corporate America. Some of their hard earned cash also goes into other venues. According to a CNN/USA Today poll last year, in addition to their small business holdings, 46% of American millionaires also held investment real estate, even though that was not their primary source of wealth.

This article was excerpted from a post by debtblog on June 12, 2007 . It covers the same subject matter about we wrote in recently published posts, to which links are provided in the text above.

Why Not Sell The Business On Your Own?

How many "Business For Sale" signs have you ever seen while you drive down main street or on your daily drive to work? None?

Well, there are very logical reasons why you haven't. The biggest reason is that the "Business For Sale" sign would soon be replaced with a "Going Out Of Business Sale." Consider the following points.

First off, even if the you don't actually hang a "For Sale" sign outside the window, trying to sell it on your own through classified ads, or, heaven forbid, by word of mouth, for instance, threatens the business' reputation and future. Secondly, even if the right prospective buyer comes along, do you -- an owner of a privately-held company -- have the required skills and knowledge in the fields of accounting, law, taxes, marketing, and more importantly, negotiating on your own behalf about perhaps your most important asset -- your livelihood?

Do you, a business owner who is trying run your business on a daily basis, have the time to find, contact and liaise with potential buyers that are serious about buying your particular business? Can you maintain the confidentiality that is required to prevent damaging your competitiveness in your market area? If staff and suppliers find out that you are selling, it will affect current trading ability. Do you have any experience in selling a business? Can you remain cool and patient when a buyer is trying to negotiate a lower price, particularly if their objectives are the complete reverse of your own? Do you even know how to value your business and what it is really worth in the marketplace?

Let's discuss the issue of primary concern when selling a business...confidentiality. The most important aspect of selling a business is confidentiality. It must be maintained throughout the entire selling process. If people find out that your business is for sale, it will be perceived in a negative light, where some, mainly your competitors, will take advantage and can cause damage to the ongoing viability of your business.

There is, of course, the proper time to disclose an impending sale. The preferable time to come clean is when the business is under contract and has entered the final stages of the selling process. By looking at the different responses by the varied types of people associated with your business to the news of your business being for sale, you will understand why confidentiality is necessary.

Customers
If customers get wind that your business is on the market, they will most likely take about a New York minute to hike on over to one of your competitors to do business. Losing customers affects the value of the business -- less sales means less profit, and less profit means less interest from prospective buyers. After all, one of the major reasons why someone would want to buy your business is because of the profit they could make.

Employees
If employees are told that the business is up for sale, think nano-second. If you think a New York minute is fast, your employees would evacuate the premises before you can blink. They will feel insecure about their future and will seek more stable employment. Fear of new management and whether job cuts would ensue are legitimate concerns for anyone in which your business is their livelihood. If key members of staff left the business after hearing the news, it may seriously cripple the performance of your business. Consequently, not only will the value be reduced, but the chance of selling your business is significantly diminished.

Suppliers
Your relationship with suppliers may take a turn for the worse if they are aware of your plans to sell the business. They may feel that your decision to sell is based around financial difficulties and, if you currently purchase supplies on credit, they may reconsider your position and demand cash on delivery, which may certainly have an effect on your immediate cash flow. Great businesses are sold every day. However, in general, their is a negative perception of a business when it is rumored to be for sale.

Banks
Banks are very cautious of small businesses because of their risky nature and so it is no surprise to how they would react when they find out that yours is for sale. They may decide to put a halt on further borrowings, overdrafts or lines of credit available to you . Or, even worse, put out a call to recover any outstanding debt.

Competitors
How would you react to news of your competitor putting their business on the market? Very positively one would assume. This is exactly how your competitors will react should they discover that you are selling your business and would take quick action to affect your sales and customer confidence. Competitors would announce it from roof tops if they could to make it known that you are selling so they can reap the harvest of new profits from your old customers.

For these reasons a business brokerage firm would be very helpful towards selling your business. In fact, they can be the essential ingredient. Let's explain this statement further. Before you believe in the necessity of contracting with a brokerage firm to represent you in the sale of your business, it is important that you recognise the value they bring to the table.

Business brokers, in general, work on a success-based commission. They get paid when the business is sold and the deal is closed. They are your partner throughout the process and utilize unique marketing methods to achieve the goal. Not only will they find and screen prospective buyers for your business, they can value your business, settle negotiations, and help obtain financing for the buyer. Experienced business brokers can often obtain a higher selling price because they are in tune with current trends and economic conditions in their market area and are aware of what people are looking to buy. Supply and demand plays a factor when a business is up for sale. For example, a seller's market in Houston has existed for the past couple of years and is still ripening due to the superior economic conditions it has enjoyed over the rest of the country.

Also, potential buyers will feel more at ease speaking to brokers then they would directly to the owner and by doing so, it allows you the time to continue running the business and keeping it profitable. Most importantly, brokers will provide the confidentiality you need, saving you potential grief from the issues surrounding customers, suppliers, and competitors.

Finding a reputable broker can be done through referrals from fellow professionals such as accountants, attorneys, small business lenders, and even by word-of-mouth from people that have previously used a broker. For further information about how to choose a broker in your area, you may wish to read this article.

In conclusion, whenever a business is on the market, it must to be done in a confidential manner by someone who has done it thousands of times. Owners have good reasons for selling, and there are great businesses being sold every day. But there are negative connotations attributed to a business for sale in the general public's eyes. They think there must be something wrong with the business. Which, of course, is not the case in most instances. Keep in mind these two statistics. The national average of businesses that actually sell once they are on the market is approximately 30%, the reasons for which a business broker could explain to you. And, only one in ten people who are looking to purchase a business, ever actually do. So, if trying to sell your business on your own fails, you may have lost customers, vendors, or employees. You don't want to end up putting that sign on the window that says, "Going Out of Business Sale!"

Texas Is No. 2 Place For Retiring Baby Boomers

Watch out, Florida! Texas has emerged as the No. 2 retirement mecca in the country. The Lone Star State has vaulted over Arizona and California and is gaining on the Sunshine State.

The North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement, which is nationally known for tracking retirement migration trends, studied 2005 data from the U.S. Census Bureau on the number of Americans who move out of state to enjoy their golden years. "Older Americans who are looking to relocate upon retirement continue to move to sunny climes, but Texas has gained an edge over other Sun Belt states," said Bill Haas, the study's author. "Texas' lower living costs give it a distinct advantage."

Texas' economy is among the better state economies in the country. In fact, Houston is No. 3 Business-Friendly City in the Nation. It has benefitted from the State's pro-growth policies, including no state income tax. Texas' natural attributes also appeal to boomers who plan to move when their first careers are over. Boomers are looking for warmer climates that complement their active lifestyle, and Texas has an abundance of those places – from the Gulf Coast to the Hill Country to the Piney Woods to the expanse of West Texas. Boomers are selling their houses in their home states, coming to Texas and paying cash for a house here, and then investing the rest. Some are investing in second careers and going into business for themselves. This energetic boomer generation doesn't retire quietly.

This is one of the reasons that where Baby Boomer retirees settle down is becoming a matter of keen interest among economic development officials who see gold in the silver-haired generation. The study said the Texas economy is reaping an additional $751 million annually from older migrants who bring their investments, pensions and Social Security payments. Retirees can be an economic engine. The money they're spending and investing is creating jobs in their new communities.

International Business Brokers Association - 45th Semi-Annual Conference This Week

The International Business Brokers Association is having its 45th Semi-Annual Conference this week, June 3 through June 9, at the Memphis Cook Convention Center in Memphis, Tennessee.

The International Business Brokers Association® (IBBA®) is the largest international non-profit association operating exclusively for the benefit of people and firms engaged in the various aspects of business brokerage and mergers and acquisitions. Today, the IBBA has more than 1,800 cooperative business brokers and intermediaries across Canada, Mexico, Asia, Europe, Australia and the United States. The association represents professional, ethical and practice standards by which its members operate.

This semi-annual event is seven days of professional development and top-notch education and networking. Educational and Workshop courses number close to 100 and include such topics as:

• Up-to-date legal and tax issues that impact business transfer transactions
• Analyzing and recasting financial statements
• Techniques for pricing and maximizing value of privately-held companies
• Succession planning and exit strategies
• Methods in negotiating
• Solutions to closing challenging transactions
• Options available in getting deals financed

At each conference new and vital industry products and services are introduced at the IBBA Trade Fair and the M&A Middle Market Expo. Sponsors and speakers include global economists, banking and lending professionals, private equity and other investment groups, and experts in tax and legal aspects of business transfers.

When choosing a business brokerage firm to represent the sale of your business, it is important to ascertain the firm's participation in the IBBA. For more information, visit the IBBA website.