You'll only sell your business once. The owners who exit well start planning years before the sale — because the biggest tax concessions in Australian law reward preparation, not luck.
For most business owners, the business is the super fund, the career, and the identity all at once. Selling it is not just a deal — it's the conversion of a life's work into the capital that has to fund everything that comes after. That transformation deserves more planning than the sale itself usually gets.
The tax stakes are unusually high. Australia's small business CGT concessions are among the most generous provisions in the tax system — used well, they can reduce the tax on a sale dramatically, sometimes to nil, and open extraordinary superannuation contribution opportunities. But they hinge on conditions that must be true before the transaction: asset thresholds, active-asset tests, structure. Discovering them afterwards is one of the most expensive forms of hindsight there is.
The owners who exit well come to us two or three years out. In that time we can position the structure for the concessions, clean up the balance sheet a buyer will scrutinise, plan where the proceeds will live — super, investment structures, debt retirement — and design the income that replaces the salary and dividends the business used to pay.
Succession has more shapes than a trade sale: family transition, management buyout, staged earn-outs. Each has different tax, risk, and lifestyle profiles, and the right answer depends on what you want the years after the sale to look like — a question worth answering before the negotiations start, not during them.
The hardest part of a business sale is often the year after it. The owners who thrive have a plan for their capital and their time. Alastair works with you on both — because a strong balance sheet and nothing to get up for is not the outcome anyone worked thirty years to achieve.
Book a Consultation with AlastairBook a no-obligation initial consultation — an honest conversation about where you are today and where you want to be.
Ferncourt Advice Pty Ltd is a Corporate Authorised Representative of WealthCycle Pty Ltd AFSL No. 560770 ABN 79 676 547 863
The information on this website is general in nature and does not take into account your personal financial situation, objectives or needs. Before acting on any information, you should consider its appropriateness for your circumstances and seek advice from a qualified financial adviser.
© 2026 Ferncourt Advice Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.
Site by PlannerWebThe collection of personal information about individuals by organisations is governed by the Privacy Act 1988 (the Privacy Act) which contains a national scheme for the collection, use, correction, disclosure and transfer of personal information by organisations in the private sector.
Protecting client's privacy is very important to us. As part of our commitment to ensuring the safety of our client's private and confidential information and as a mechanism to ensure our compliance with the Privacy Act, we have established and implemented a Privacy Policy (the Policy).
The Policy explains our policies and practices with respect to the collection and management of personal information we collect from you. The Privacy Act requires us to handle your personal information in accordance with a set of principles, known as the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). Those Principles and our approach to those Principles are set out below.
The Policy applies to Wealthcycle Pty Ltd, and all of its related companies together referred to in this Policy as us.
We will collect and hold your personal information for the purposes of:
The type of information collected from you includes information that is necessary to operate your investment accounts or for us to provide advice to you. We may ask you to provide personal information such as your:
Much of this information is collected through application forms, the use of our online facilities or through ongoing communications with you. We will not collect any personal information about you except where you have knowingly provided that information to us or we believe you have authorised a third party to provide that information to us.
There are also specific circumstances in which we will ask for your sensitive information such as:
We will always seek your consent before collecting this kind of sensitive information. We may also need to collect information from third parties. For example, we may need to collect information from your accountant, product issuer and employer.
We are also required to ask for certain information by law. Wherever there is a legal requirement for us to ask for information about you, we will inform you of the obligation and the consequences of not giving us the requested information. Such evidence may include items such as a certified copy of your driver's licence, passport or birth certificate.
You are not required to give us the information that we request. However, if you do not give us the information that we ask for, or the information you give is not complete or accurate, this may:
For example, we are required to ask for your TFN when you invest in a superannuation product. If you choose not to give us your TFN, you may be subject to higher tax charges on your superannuation and the fund may not be able to accept personal contributions.
We use your personal information for the purposes for which it has been obtained. We collect your personal information so that we are able to act on your request, such as:
Personal information will also be used where you have consented to such disclosure or where it is required or authorised under law, in circumstances relating to public health and safety or in connection with certain operations by or on behalf of an enforcement body.
We may provide your information to external parties. Where personal information is disclosed there are strict controls in place to ensure information is held, used and disclosed in accordance with the APPs. The types of external organisations to which we often disclose your personal information include:
We may also disclose your personal information where it is required by law (such as to the Australian Taxation Office), authorised by law, necessary in discharging obligations (such as to foreign governments for the purposes of foreign taxation), or required to assist in law enforcement. We will also disclose your information if you give your consent.
We do not currently disclose your personal information overseas.
You may request access to the personal information we hold about you. There may be circumstances where we are unable to give you access to the information that you have requested. If this is the case we will inform you and explain the reasons why.
You have a right to ask us to correct any information we hold about you if you believe it is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, irrelevant or is misleading. If you wish to access your personal information, you should contact us through our offices.
If you believe that we have mishandled your personal information, in turn, breaching the APPs, you may lodge a complaint with us. The complaint, addressed to the Privacy Officer, must be in writing in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988. From receipt of your written complaint, the Privacy Officer has 30 days to respond.
In the event that the Privacy Officer is unable to resolve your complaint, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner via:
We have practices and procedures in place to safeguard your privacy. Your personal information is stored on highly secure cloud servers with strict password access. The people who handle your personal information for us have the training, knowledge, skills and commitment to protect it from unauthorised access or misuse.
You should note that there are inherent security risks in transmitting information through the internet. You should assess these potential risks when deciding whether to use online services. If you do not wish to transmit information via email or through our website, there are other ways in which you can provide this information to us.
A "cookie" is a small text file that may be placed on a computer by a web server. Our websites may use cookies which may enable us to identify you or your browser while you are using our site. All browsers allow you to be notified when you receive a cookie and you may elect to either accept it or not. If you wish not to accept a cookie, this may impact the effectiveness of the website.
We are required by law to retain certain records of information for varying lengths of time. Depending on the context surrounding the information, we may be required to retain records which include your personal information from 7 years to permanently. Where your information is not required to be retained under law, we will take reasonable steps to permanently destroy or de-identify your personal information when it is no longer required for the purpose for which it was collected.
You can contact us by email at service@ferncourtadvice.com.au or as detailed below:
Privacy Officers: Alastair Kennedy, James Randle, and Andrew Keay
Wealthcycle Pty Ltd
GPO Box 2958
Sydney NSW 2001
Last updated 2026.
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Content on this website is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. You should obtain personal financial advice before acting on any information contained here.
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These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia.
Last updated 2026.