3 minute read
LIFE AND BUSINESS
The final curtain
MATT STOREY
I’ve just had a tumour removed from my head. Yep – it made me sit up a bit too. First, the surreal announcement that I had a suspected Fish Tank Granuloma (WTF?) followed by the news that what had been classed as a harmless cyst was, in fact, cancer. A squamous cell carcinoma since you ask.
Absorbing a curve ball of this magnitude prompted me to confront a whole set of potential futures not hitherto included in our five-year plan. The need to provide for contingencies was rammed even further home when the lady who runs our payroll became impossible to get hold of around the same time. It turned out she was up to her neck trying to unpick the terrible mess left by the owner of a company who had suddenly – and permanently – left the building.
All this morbid contemplation has led me to ask a few industry friends what, if any, provisions they have made for the continued smooth running of their business following an impromptu meeting with their maker. The response? Blank looks all around.
The whole subject of risk mitigation belongs at the most tedious, arse-achingly boring end of running an events business, along with paying the VAT, P32, National Insurance et al... The time spent on such soporific activities could be so much more pleasurably used building an immersive Fraggle Rock or flying a DeLorean across town. However, there’s nothing quite like a tumour to make you look a bit beyond next week.
Company owners realise that for the sake of employees and stakeholders we have a duty to ensure our business could continue to run for at least six months should we suddenly find ourselves bereft of life. Bills must be paid; ditto salaries and wages, but have you ensured that all passwords and bank details can be accessed by a few key people if you abruptly cease to be?
On a personal note, you’re likely to have your family or inheritors’ interests front of mind – so they receive a fair pay out from your share of the business. And it will be in your fellow directors’ interests for the company to be able to function with the option of selling in the future.
A swift glimpse on a solicitor’s website had me gagging on terms like Deed of Anti-embarrassment (really?) so I’m not even going to pretend I understand all the legalities beyond grasping that every company will have its own peculiar set of circumstances. There’s not much point in looking for a Dummies’ Guide on the subject in the business section of Waterstones.
So, in preparation for shuffling off your mortal coil, it looks like a session with a corporate solicitor is the smart move here and having been gently nudged in that direction by my recent brush with mortality, I’d recommend any other event business owner do the same.
Because, as my old grandpappy used to say: Prevention is better than cure. Hardly an ideal maxim on this occasion, but you can be confident that not making continuity arrangements for your business will end up messy. And it will certainly cost more to untangle the situation after you’ve run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible than if you had put the right plans in place while your metabolic processes remained intact!
What plans have you made for your event business? Matt Storey, partner at The White Storey, talks candidly about how a recent personal matter has made him plan for the future
