The founders who keep the most after the sale often start planning 18+ months before closing
Most of what shapes your tax outcome, your family’s security, and your next chapter is decided in the 18 to 24 months before you sign. This guide shows you what to put in motion, and when.
The Guide
The Pre-Liquidity Blueprint
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The ninety-day myth costs founders their strongest options.
We have found that most planning starts when the deal feels real, usually about ninety days before close. By then, the structure is mostly set, valuations have climbed, and several of the strategies that move the needle have already aged out of reach.
Most owners don’t realize they’re losing options until those options are gone. By then, the impact isn’t just reflected in the tax bill or what they’re able to pass on. It’s also reflected in whether the transition looks the way they hoped—for themselves, their employees, and the business they’ve spent years building.
Early planning can avoid that. With eighteen to twenty-four months, you have room to be deliberate: to gift at lower valuations, to qualify for exclusions that require holding periods, to align with your spouse before the deal is built around the wrong assumptions.
The work is the same. The timing changes what it’s worth.
Options Available Before Close
The guide maps what is still possible at each stage, and what closes off as the deal approaches.
24
Months out
18
Months out
12
Months out
6
Months out
90
Days out
Built From Years Inside Founder Transitions
Mary E. Gilligan, Esq. founded MG Financial in 1996 and serves as CEO and Chief Investment Officer. She is an attorney, which means the planning behind your transition carries legal precision alongside financial judgment, two disciplines that usually live in separate offices.
That combination shapes how the firm works. Pre-liquidity planning sits exactly where law, tax, and investing meet, and decisions made in one area quietly reshape the others. Having both perspectives at the center is what makes genuine coordination possible.
The philosophy is steady and family-first: plan early, coordinate the full team, and follow through until everything is implemented. Stewardship of what you’ve built, and durability across generations, over anything flashy.
