I sat in the owner’s chair myself, with nobody doing for me what I now do for you. That is why I built Owner-Side Advisory.
Definition
An owner-side advisor works for the owner and for no one else. He gives no legal opinions, holds no money, and runs nothing. He sits above the lawyers, the bankers and the family office, and makes them work as one.
Who is my client
The owner of a family business, in Europe or Brazil. Sometimes the company is still his. Sometimes he has sold it, and what he holds now is the money and the question of who comes after him.
He is not short of advisors. A corporate lawyer, a tax lawyer, an accountant, a banker, a wealth manager, sometimes a family office. Each one is good, and each one answers his own part. He is short of one person holding the whole of it.
And he is the only person in that room who cannot walk away from the consequence.
Transitions
I do not think of these as services. What an owner lives through are transitions, and each one is a different crossing.
If you are selling
I stay with the bankers and the lawyers every day.
You keep running your business instead of chasing them. If the sale is blocked by old debts and four firms sending four opinions, I turn them into one team working in one order.
If cash is short
I help you work out where more can come from, and what to negotiate, postpone or save.
The banks, the suppliers and the tax authorities all have terms, and terms can be moved. If it comes to it, an asset can be sold without touching the heart of the business.
If you or your company has debt
We work to get it off your back.
We start by putting everything you have actually signed on one page, because most owners cannot list their guarantees from memory.
If nobody tells you the truth
I say what the room will not.
Every company under pressure builds a quiet agreement that everything is fine. I can break it because I want nothing from you afterwards.
If a dispute turns into a war
I keep the business road open.
The lawyers will fight. My job is to make sure there is still something left to agree on when they stop.
If governance lives only on paper
I show you the gap.
I test the documents against how decisions are actually taken, and find where the line between the family and the company is missing.
If succession is next
I organize it with the family in the room.
Documents say who owns. They never say who is listened to, and both decide whether the plan survives its first disagreement.
If everything lands at once
We start with clarity, not money.
The first thing to recover is never the cash. It is knowing what you are actually looking at.
What I do not do
I am not your lawyer. I do not give legal opinions.
I do not manage your money. I hold no mandate over any asset.
I do not negotiate on your behalf. You or your counsel sit at the table.
I do not run your company.
I do not replace any advisor you already have, and I do not compete for their mandate.
No one can hire me against you. Not a partner, not a creditor, not a relative who wants your chair.
I report to you, and to nobody else.
How you can hire me
A defined piece of work
A fixed fee, plus a percentage of the deal.
A divestment, a sale, an M&A, or any mandate with a beginning and an end.
Standing advisory
A fixed fee.
For a determined period, or ongoing, so that I am already in place when the next one arrives.
Everything is negotiable, and everything is agreed with you before the work starts. Nothing about what I earn arrives as a surprise later.
You are the only person who pays me. That is what lets me say what the room will not.
Henry Maksoud Neto is an owner-side advisor based in Europe. He works with the owners of family businesses in transition, in Europe and Brazil. More at ownerside-advisory.com.
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