ZETEO WEALTH × AVANT LAW
A Webinar for Practice Owners
From Growth
to Exit.
Structuring your business for long-term wealth.
Today's Hosts02 / 20
Who's in the Room
Your hosts today.
Aston Chee
Special Counsel · Avant Law
Corporate and commercial lawyer specialising in mergers and acquisitions. Advises practice owners across the full lifecycle — set-up, equity arrangements, growth structuring, due diligence, and sale.
Sydney · M&A · Corporate Structuring
Nilar Alom Ispahany
Principal Advisor · Zeteo Wealth Partners
18 years working with high net worth families through wealth accumulation, liquidity events, and intergenerational succession. Builds tailored investment frameworks, not product portfolios.
AFSL 560247 · HNW & Wholesale · Family Succession
The Promise03 / 20
What You'll Walk Away With
Four things, in one hour.
01
A clearer view of the structural decisions that determine your exit value — long before you're ready to sell.
02
The 3 to 5 year preparation window that separates a great exit from an average one — and what to do in each year.
03
A framework for the proceeds — turning a one-time event into multi-generational wealth.
04
Live Q&A — bring the questions you've never quite known who to ask.
Part 1 · Aston Chee · Avant Law04 / 20
The Journey of a Practice
Four stages. One trajectory.
STAGE 01
Start
Years 0–3
Entity choice, premises, first equity decisions. The DNA of every future option.
STAGE 02
Grow
Years 3–10
Associates, partnerships, additional locations. Equity gets complicated.
STAGE 03
Mature
Years 10–20
The practice runs without you. Real estate vs. operations. Cash flow shifts.
STAGE 04
Transition
Final 3–5 years
Preparing for sale. The buyers, the structures, the timing.
Decisions made in year one shape what's possible in year twenty.
Interactive · Where Are You?05 / 20
⚡ Live Tool — Drag to your horizon
If your exit is X years away…
Years until you'd like to be fully out
Now510152025+
Mature Practice
You have time to do this properly. Now is when structure matters most.
Priority 01Separate your real estate from your operating entity. It compounds optionality.
Priority 02Build a practice that can run without you for 6 weeks. Buyers pay a premium for this.
Priority 03Start a family trust if you don't have one. Income flexibility matters far before sale.
Part 1 · Structure06 / 20
The Decisions That Compound
Year one shapes year twenty.
Entity choice
Sole trader, company, trust, partnership — each has dramatically different tax, succession and sale outcomes. Most owners discover the wrong one in year five.
- Sole trader: simple, but no asset protection or income splitting
- Company: tax cap, but trapped franking credits at sale
- Trust: flexibility, but governance complexity
Equity arrangements
The first equity decision — associate buy-in, junior partnership — sets the template for every transaction that follows.
- Vendor finance vs paid-in capital
- Drag-along, tag-along, pre-emption rights
- Valuation methodology — fixed multiple vs market
Part 1 · The Real Estate Question07 / 20
Two assets. Not one.
Should the practice own its premises?
If yes:
- Operating entity carries the asset — sale of the business sells the building
- Buyer may not want both
- Trapped equity
- Single point of risk exposure
If separated:
- Property in a separate entity (often a trust or SMSF)
- Lease-back to the operating company at commercial rates
- Sell the practice, keep the rent — or sell each on its own timeline
- Better tax treatment of rental income post-exit
For most practice owners, the building is half the wealth — and the easier half to mishandle.
Interactive · Click each buyer08 / 20
⚡ Live Tool — Different buyers, different deals
Which version of your practice are you selling?
BUYER 01
Strategic Corporates
The big consolidators. Healius, Sonic, ICON — they buy market position.
Tap to compare →
What they pay for
Scale & geography
EBITDA multiple expansion
Clean, transferable systems
What they push back on
Key-person dependence on you
Messy IP / lease arrangements
Earn-outs tied to 3-year retention
BUYER 02
Private Equity Roll-up
PE houses aggregating practices into platforms for a later trade sale.
Tap to compare →
What they pay for
Speed and certainty of close
Often the highest headline multiple
You may roll some equity for "second bite"
What they push back on
Aggressive earn-out structures
Cultural fit risk for staff
Capped upside if rollover terms are weak
BUYER 03
Associate Buy-out
Your associate or junior partner buys in over time.
Tap to compare →
What you get
Continuity for staff and patients
Smoother personal transition
Vendor finance terms you control
What's at stake
Usually a lower multiple
You carry buyer credit risk
Slow timeline — 3 to 7 years
BUYER 04
Management Buy-out
The senior team — sometimes backed by external finance — buys the practice.
Tap to compare →
What you get
Legacy retention & clean handover
Team continuity
Often staged with rollover equity
What's at stake
Financing risk — often debt-funded
Multiple typically below corporate buyers
Negotiation with people you employ
Part 1 · From the M&A Desk09 / 20
The 3 Most Expensive Mistakes
Patterns Aston sees over and over.
01
Selling to the first buyer, not the right buyer.
The first offer is rarely the best one. A formal process — even a quiet one — usually adds 15–30% to the headline price.
02
Bundling the real estate with the practice.
Two assets, two timelines, two tax outcomes. Bundling them collapses your optionality and often your post-sale income.
03
Leaving structural cleanup to the final 12 months.
Restructures done late attract scrutiny, can disqualify CGT concessions, and signal desperation to buyers. The window for clean cleanup closes 24–36 months out.
Interactive · Indicative range only10 / 20
⚡ Live Tool — A rough sense of the question
"What's my practice worth?"
Indicative Enterprise Value
$3.2M – $4.8MBefore structuring, tax, real estate
This is illustrative only — not advice. Real valuation depends on dozens of factors: revenue mix, key-person risk, lease security, capex, staff structure, location, buyer type, deal structure. Treat this as a starting question, not an answer.
Pause11 / 20
You've signed.
The cheque clears Friday.
Now what?
Part 2 · Nilar Alom Ispahany · Zeteo Wealth12 / 20
The Wealth Journey
Three phases. Three different problems.
Accumulating
"How do I grow the pile?"
Income, savings rate, leverage, debt management. Most practice owners get good advice here.
Realising
"What do I do with the windfall?"
The liquidity event. Tax timing, deployment, decisions made under emotional pressure.
Stewarding
"How does this outlast me?"
Drawdown strategy, succession, family governance. The hardest phase — and the one most owners get accumulating-phase advice for.
The advice you needed at 35 is the wrong advice at 60.
Part 2 · The First 90 Days13 / 20
After the cheque clears
Three things not to do.
DON'T 01
Make a major lifestyle purchase.
The boat, the second house, the upgrade. Your future self will thank you for waiting 12 months. Anchoring at peak liquidity sets a spending pattern you'll regret.
DON'T 02
Lock in a long-dated structure.
30-year insurance bonds, 10-year fund commitments, illiquid private deals. You don't yet know what you actually need. Liquidity is itself an asset.
DON'T 03
Listen to a "guaranteed" pitch.
Newly liquid clients attract the wrong kind of attention. If a return is guaranteed, the risk has been hidden, not removed. Wait. Frameworks come before products.
The first 90 days set the tone. The first 12 months set the structure.
Interactive · Click each bucket14 / 20
⚡ Live Tool — Click a bucket to expand
The Zeteo Framework: four buckets, four jobs.
I
Lifestyle
FUND THE LIFE
II
Growth
COMPOUND PATIENTLY
III
Preservation
PROTECT THE FLOOR
BUCKET I · LIFESTYLE
Fund the life you actually want.
5 to 7 years of expenses, sitting in stable, liquid assets. Inflation-linked. The bucket that lets you ignore the news and sleep through volatility.
Typical Allocation15–25%
What sits here
Cash, term deposits, short-dated bonds, defensive bond ETFs. Annual lifestyle drawdown comes from here. Topped up from Bucket III as needed.
Time Horizon
0–7 years
Allocations are illustrative. Real allocation depends on age, income needs, risk profile, family situation, and tax circumstances.
Part 2 · The Wholesale Toolkit15 / 20
Beyond the retail toolkit
What HNW families access that retail doesn't.
Private equity
The unlisted economy. ~87% of Australian businesses with more than $100M revenue are private. Retail investors can't get in.
Private credit
Direct lending to mid-market businesses. Typically 7–11% returns, secured, with capital protection. Almost entirely wholesale.
Direct property co-investments
Commercial and industrial deals, often with experienced syndicators — without the headaches of single-asset ownership.
Pre-IPO & secondary stakes
Late-stage growth investments before public listing. Concentrated risk, but selective access changes the curve.
Bespoke structured products
Capital-protected notes, defined-outcome products. Right for some buckets, wrong for others.
Hedge funds (carefully)
Diversifying return streams — long-short equity, macro, market-neutral. Used selectively in the Preservation bucket.
Part 2 · Structures16 / 20
Where the wealth lives
Tax-aware structures.
1
Family Discretionary Trust
Income flexibility across beneficiaries. Allows you to direct distributions to lower-rate family members.
2
Bucket Company
Corporate tax cap (30%) on retained income. A pressure-release valve when trust distributions push individuals into top brackets.
3
SMSF
15% on income, 0% in pension phase. Right at the right scale; complex at the wrong one.
4
Investment Bonds
Long-term, tax-paid at 30%, ideal for gifting structures to children and grandchildren.
5
Small Business CGT Concessions
The most valuable concessions in the tax code — if your structure qualifies. Most don't, by default.
47%→
15–20%
Effective family tax rates we've achieved for clients post-restructure. Legally. Durably. Documented.
Part 2 · Succession17 / 20
Beyond the cheque
Passing wealth without spoiling it.
70%
of family wealth is lost by the second generation. 90% by the third.
— Williams & Preisser, The Williams Group, 20-year study
The vehicle isn't the problem. The conversation is.
Trusts, bonds, gifting strategies — these are tools. They don't fail because they're poorly built. They fail because the next generation has been given money without context, structure, or communication.
Our approach: family governance, intentional education, and structures that match the values you want to pass on — not just the assets.
Part 2 · A Real Story18 / 20
Anonymised · Client name changed · Details simplified
Dr. M — a GP who sold in 2024.
Before working with us
$3.2M in proceeds. No plan.
Practice sold to
Corporate consolidator
Real estate
Bundled in the sale
Tax structure
Sole shareholder company
Asset plan
Considering $1M into a friend's apartment deal
12 months later
Same $3.2M. Different trajectory.
Real estate
Retained — lease income covers ~50% of lifestyle
Structures
Family trust + bucket company + SMSF
Effective family tax rate
18%
Deployment
4 buckets · Public + private markets
Sustainable drawdown
~$180k/yr · capital still growing
How We Work19 / 20
No mystery, no pitch
What working with Zeteo looks like.
Step 01
Discovery
One hour, no obligation. We listen, map your full picture — practice, property, family, structures. No advice yet.
Step 02
Strategy Session
We come back with a framework — tailored, written, walk-through. Whether you work with us or not, this is yours to keep.
Step 03
Implementation
Coordinated with your accountant, your lawyer, your existing relationships. We build, restructure, and deploy.
Step 04
Partnership
Quarterly reviews. Ad-hoc when life happens. We're your investment voice for the long game.
Live Q&A · Stay Close20 / 20
The Floor is Yours
Your questions. Live.
How to ask
Use the Zoom chat or "Raise Hand". We have ~15 minutes.
Recording
Sent to all registrants within 48 hours.
Follow-up
Reply to the post-event email — we read every one.
Direct line
nilar@zeteowealth.com · 0432 231 282 · www.zeteowealth.com
Avant Law
aston.chee@avantlaw.com.au
SAVE THE DATE
September 2026 — In-person.
A smaller, by-invitation session for practice owners thinking seriously about the next chapter. Reply to the follow-up email if you'd like first notice.
Thank you for your time today.