Buying, Selling, and Valuing Financial Practices, + Website: The FP Transitions M&A Guide

The Authoritative M&A Guide for Financial Advisors

Buying, Selling, & Valuing Financial Practices shows you how to complete a sale or acquisition of a financial advisory practice and have both the buyer and seller walk away with the best possible terms. From the first pages of this unique book, buyers and sellers and merger partners will find detailed information that separately addresses each of their needs, issues and concerns.

From bestselling author and industry influencer David Grau Sr. JD, this masterful guide takes you from the important basics of valuation to the finer points of deal structuring, due diligence, and legal matters, with a depth of coverage and strategic guidance that puts you in another league when you enter the M&A space. Complete with valuable tools, worksheets, and checklists on a companion website, no other resource enables you to:

• Master the concepts of value and valuation and take this issue “off the table” early in the negotiation process
• Utilize advanced deal structuring techniques including seller and bank financing strategies
• Understand how to acquire a book, practice or business based on how it was built, and what it is capable of delivering in the years to come
• Navigate the complexities of this highly-regulated profession to achieve consistently great results whether buying, selling, or merging

Buying, Selling, & Valuing Financial Practices will ensure that you manage your M&A transaction properly and professionally, aided with the most powerful set of tools available anywhere in the industry, all designed to create a transaction where everyone wins―buyer, seller, and clients.

David Grau Sr., JD, is an award winning author and a global advocate for small business stewardship. His three most recent books (The Stewardship Advantage, Building With the End in Mind, and Acquiring Your Future Through a Succession Plan) form a cohesive trilogy on stewardship, succession, and small business transformation—each written to help today's owners build businesses that are profitable, durable, and deeply impactful.
 
Before becoming a full-time writer, David spent decades doing exactly what he now writes about: building, scaling, and successfully transitioning a professional services firm from the ground up. Trained in law, securities regulation, business taxation, and entity structuring, he started his career as a sole proprietor—wearing every hat and learning firsthand the daily realities of small business ownership. He went on to found and lead a nationally respected consulting firm, where he guided thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners through the complex work of long-term value creation, succession and sustainability.
 
Now semi-retired and devoted to his writing, David draws from this lived experience to offer books that are practical, inspiring, and grounded in the realities of small business ownership. Whether you're just starting out or preparing to pass the torch, David's current books offer a clear roadmap for building a business that matters—one that makes a difference for every person it touches, and for generations to come.