Passing on your company: which professionals to involve

Quick answer. A successful company transfer rests on a coordinated team: the chartered accountant figures and structures, the lawyer secures the deeds and the warranty, the notary handles real estate and family transmission, the sale adviser finds and negotiates with buyers. The conductor's role often falls to the chartered accountant, who knows the figures and coordinates the other parties.

Selling or passing on your company is not a solo operation. Each dimension, financial, legal, tax, wealth, calls for a different skill, and the frequent mistake is to involve these professionals too late or in scattered order. Here is who does what, and how to coordinate the team to secure the transfer.

The chartered accountant is often the first contact and the pivot of the operation.

They know the company's accounts, prepare the financial elements, establish the adjustments and take part in the valuation. They figure the tax impact of the sale, notably the net price after tax, and propose useful structuring, such as a holding or a prior contribution. They also prepare the accounting and tax data room and support due diligence on the seller's side.

Their intimate knowledge of the figures and their overall view often make them the conductor of the transfer, coordinating the other professionals, as described on our page on the role of the chartered accountant. They are the one who links the analysis to the calculation of the net price after tax.

The lawyer handles the legal dimension, decisive at the moment of signing.

They draft or review the sale deeds, negotiate the asset and liability warranty that protects the buyer against past risks, and secure the sensitive clauses, such as non-competition or the seller's handover support. Upstream, they audit the contracts and identify the legal risks that will surface in due diligence.

Their role is complementary to the chartered accountant's: one figures, the other drafts and protects. Coordination between the two avoids blind spots between tax and law.

Two other parties complete the team depending on the nature of the operation.

The notary is essential when the transfer includes real estate, or when it fits a family strategy of gift and split ownership. They authenticate the deeds and secure the wealth transmission. The sale adviser, or mergers-and-acquisitions intermediary, steps in to find buyers, organise competition and lead the negotiation, particularly on significant operations.

The success of a transfer depends as much on the quality of each professional as on their coordination. A team working in silos lets risks slip through at the intersection of tax and law, where the bad surprises hide.

Our conviction is that you must appoint a conductor early, most often the chartered accountant, who holds the figures and the overall view, and involve the others at the right time rather than in a rush at signing. It is better to bring the team together as soon as the decision to sell is made, to prepare the data room, anticipate the tax and correct the weaknesses, in connection with the choice of sale method. A well-orchestrated transfer is negotiated from a position of strength.

An owner had started discussions with a buyer alone, then called his advisers at signing. The chartered accountant discovered late a suboptimal tax structure, and the lawyer an unbalanced asset and liability warranty. Reopening these points at the end of the negotiation weakened the seller's position. For a second sale, the team was brought together from the start: figuring and structuring upstream, data room ready, warranty negotiated calmly. The operation closed faster and on better terms.