Fox-Smith Transition Planning and Consulting

Gustin D. Fox-Smith, AIF®, ChFC® is the founder and President of FS Advisors Wealth Management, a financial services advisory and asset management firm.  Gus is also one of Cetera Advisor Networks’ Regional Directors that are responsible for support and development of the firm’s 3,500+ advisors.  Mr. Fox-Smith specializes in executing tactical money management strategies for his clients and as a Third-Party Money Manager for advisors in his Region and around the country.  In these roles, he has delivered excellent results and service since 1992.

In serving his clients and the advisors in his Region and OSJ Branch, the need for quality, affordable assistance in the transition process was obvious while the sources to get such advice were extremely limited and lacking direct experience.  None of the firms that do this work today have actually been a party to a transition purchase themselves and had to live through the aftermath of a deal and see where the real risks lie months and years after the close.  In addition, all the companies Gus has worked with that offer assistance in this arena were delivering solutions that are overwhelmingly seller biased in risk and capital allocation and the day after the agreements were signed, they would vanish to work on the next deal, never checking back to see how their plan actually worked in order to learn from experience.  He felt there must be an option to use a firm that will not only value a business accurately, but also help build a transition plan and structure that distributes risk between parties in a balanced manner so all sides are treated equitably.

Thus, beginning in 2007, he began focusing on educating and helping advisors transition their practices and has now been the buyer of numerous practices as a result.  Since 2007, Mr. Fox-Smith has personally purchased 15 practices and has acted as a retained consultant to scores of buyers and sellers who desired help in structuring their transition, pricing their practices, or negotiating contracts.  Gus’ first-hand experience gives his firm a unique perspective when compared to other firms that offer transition services.  He has purchased practices and personally run them as an ongoing business and with his first acquisition taking place nearly two decades ago, he is aware of the long-term results. There are risks in transitions that simply do not come to fruition until years have passed. Having lived through the process and learning these lessons, Gus has developed a one-of-a-kind valuation and risk management process that has quantified and priced these risks others ignore.

Mr. Fox-Smith’s services as a Transition Consultant are available on retainer if you desire assistance in structuring your specific deal and setting up the agreements to get to the close. Once engaged, we will provide everything you need to get your transition completed with the highest retention levels possible including written purchase agreements, transition plans, marketing samples, cash flow and taxation analysis and advice, generational asset retention programs, and mediation between parties.