Know your numbers

An interesting thing happened earlier this year that proves what we say about “knowing your numbers” – especially if you’re a business owner.

A Cardiff-based company that we have been working with for about 15 years had had an offer to buy their business last year. They had declined – the offer was too low and they had their sights on a decent retirement. After all, they had worked hard on the business for many years.

When it came to their Financial Review and they told me what had happened I felt unsettled and began to wonder if they had made a hasty decision. They were attentive to my concerns as our relationship was such a longstanding one. We ran some numbers, taking into account their other assets, sale price of the business, tax, inflation, stock market volatility and some other factors and we arrived at a figure. We revisited their lifestyle aspirations – taking into account what sort of income they’d need to fulfil these in retirement. Then, we crunched the numbers.

The outcome surprised them. If they had accepted the offer – even though it seemed low to them – they would have been able to have had exactly the retirement they wanted – straight away! It was a blow for them to find that out – especially as they were beginning to tire of working hard on the business and they had already turned down the offer to sell.

But the story ends happily: The couple went back to the buyer to ask if the deal could be resurrected. It turns out that the offer was still on the table. So, the sale went through and the couple were able to unburden themselves for the business and move into a happy retirement a fair while before they would have thought possible.

The moral of this (true) story? Know your numbers. You could start by knowing ours: It’s 02920 892395 or 0117 379 0076.Give us a call. Find out more about our lifestyle modelling tool, get to know your numbers and find out when you can start doing more of the things you want to do and less of the things you have to do.

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