Collin Spence

The Cypress Grove Group provides our clients with a distinctive process and an exhaustive planning approach, both tailored to the character and needs of executives and entrepreneurs.

We follow a high-touch process of accountability and frequent reporting that closely mirrors corporate and business operational methods. We supplement the customary four step process—discovery, analysis and recommendation, implementation, and governance—with defined periodic interactions that allow for frequent status and result reviews.

Our planning goes beyond the traditional approach, taking into account the unique needs of our clients. We add executive and business owner planning elements to the traditional package of financial, investment, retirement, wealth and asset protection planning.

Executive Planning

Benefits and Incentive Compensation Analysis

• Types and provisions
• Income tax implications

Stock Options

• Vesting Analysis
• Optional exercise strategies

Concentrated Position Analysis

• Risk analysis
• Diversification strategies

Executive Stock Monetization

• Sales of restricted shares under Rule 144
• Rule 10b5-1 trading plans
• Loans and hedging strategies

Business Owner Planning

Business Needs

• Ownership
• Control and liquidity
• Key opportunities
• Key challenges

Cash Management and Capital Needs Review

• Deposit/ Treasury services
• Lines of credit
• Growth capital
• Key challenges

Retirement and Benefits Assessment

• 401(k), profit sharing an defined benefit plans
• Non-qualified deterred compensation

Risk Management

• Continuity planning
• Buy sell agreements
• Key employee life
• Split-dollar life

Succession or Exit Planning

• Strategic Client Group / Investment Bank (private sale)
• IPO
• Valuation maximization
• Strategic sale
• Financial recapitalization
• Employee stock ownership (ESOP)

There are many reasons you've had a successful career. You're among the best at what you do. You're an innovator. But perhaps most important of all, you're an enterprise leader with the dedication and vision to value the organization's interests as much, if not more than, those of your own unit or department. That's why you've been rewarded with sizable equity compensation in the form of stock grants or options.

While you have additional assets in your retirement plan, other investment accounts, insurance, and real estate, this concentrated stock position in your company represents a significant part of your total wealth. This also represents significant challenges, such as tax implications, liquidity limitations, and potential volatility. You need the help of someone who understands the complex regulations as well as the potential political ramifications surrounding equity compensation.

How We Can Help
The Cypress Grove Group at Morgan Stanley specializes in helping executives manage equity compensation issues and craft bespoke, all-inclusive wealth plans. Drawing on our team's experience and expertise, as well as Morgan Stanley's resources, we help corporate insiders navigate insider trading regulations and reporting requirements.

We can suggest tax-efficient approaches to diversification and strategies to address cash flow needs before stock liquidity is available.

• Exchange Funds: Provide diversification without triggering taxable gains through IRS-approved tax-deferred investment vehicles
• Opportunity Zone Investments
• Donor Advised Funds: Gifting appreciated long-term gain stock to offset income tax in a year when there is a liquidity event
• Portfolio Line of Credit: Borrowing against stock in a portfolio line as needed for immediate cash flow requirements
• 10b5-1 Plans: Preset diversification plans to sell through open and closed windows, approved by legal counsel and executed by third parties
• QSBS Exclusion: Gain from the sale or exchange of qualified small business stock (QSBS) may be 100% excluded from income

You've devoted yourself to building your own business. It was never really about the money; that was just a way to keep score. It was actually about pursuing your passion, being your own boss, challenging the status quo, and creating something lasting. Through your ingenuity, determination and grit, you've achieved success.

Now you're ready for another challenge, you'd like to spend more time with your family, or both. But you have substantial net worth that's difficult to access. You know your success in business doesn't automatically qualify you to steer your family through this very complex transition. You need advice and guidance from a team with the expertise and experience to help you manage what could be the transaction of a lifetime.

How We Can Help
The Cypress Grove Group at Morgan Stanley specializes in working with entrepreneurs just like you. We help you leverage personal wealth for business growth or liquidity as well as examine potential exit strategies in light of family as well as financial needs.

Drawing on our in-house expertise and the resources of Morgan Stanley we can help you through every stage in the life of a successful entrepreneur:

• Strategic Client Group / Investment Bank (private sale)
• IPO
• Generation: gain access to liquidity for business and personal use through approaches best suited to your needs and circumstances
• Monetization: model alternative strategies to monetize the value of your enterprise and consider how the proceeds hold be structured and invested
• Retirement: calculate cash flow needs, determine post career priorities and implement succession plans for continued family ownership
• Transfer: prepare younger generations with the education and support needed to assume control of family business and philanthropic legacies

You've been so dedicated to your company's needs that you probably never focused on the wealth you've built. Now that you've integrated the value of your concentrated stock into your plan or monetized the value of your business, you've found that your hard work has potentially provided generational wealth for your family. This realization raises family, lifestyle, and values questions as well as financial issues.

How much of your wealth do you want your heirs to inherit and are they prepared intellectually and emotionally to manage it? How can you make sure the money you donate is used effectively and how can you get your family interested in philanthropy? How can you develop a trust, tax and estate strategy and overall wealth plan that will provide for your current and future needs as well those of your heirs and causes?

How We Can Help
The Cypress Grove Group at Morgan Stanley can help you answer these questions and address these challenges. We bring the same level of attentiveness and service to all the issues you're facing, not just those involving your compensation, business, and finances.

Thanks to the resources available from Morgan Stanley we can provide you with comprehensive family office style services.