Some of Houdart A&C’s clients are family-owned companies. We support the directors of these companies so they can make the best possible business decisions as regards their asset management and their family.
All company directors are primarily concerned with their company’s financials and growth, whether they are in the initial start-up phase, experiencing growth or on the verge of a transfer or sale. The director’s decisions and circumstances will directly or indirectly impact the company’s asset portfolio and their family.
Houdart A&C can put its many strengths to work to support directors in their asset management:
- in-depth company knowledge,
- acute understanding of the director’s personal challenges,
- a close relationship with the partners founded upon trust,
- multidisciplinary expertise,
- our independent perspective.
At Houdart A&C, we aspire to develop asset management strategies focused on helping directors prepare decision-making, structuring solutions tailored to their circumstances and finance and time pressures, and which are effective in terms of taxation and asset management. From this standpoint, the scope of our work is extensive with a focus on the following tasks.
Optimising your French social security scheme and compensation
As a sole trader or a majority shareholder of a French private limited company (société à responsabilité limitée, SARL), you are covered by the social security scheme for self-employed workers (régime social des indépendants, RSI). The legal form you choose for your business not only affects its tax-related and legal characteristics, but also determines your social security scheme.
The rules governing the rates you pay in social security contributions on compensation and dividends depend on the social security scheme. Directors need to make a decision regarding their compensation, responsibilities and capital based on their circumstances. As such, they must seek to optimise their compensation in terms of social security contributions and taxation.
Supporting a company’s sale or transfer
Selling and transferring a family-owned companies can be a complex affair. It involves an array of technicalities ranging from accounting, finance, taxation, law, social aspects and HR as well as taking into consideration the motivation and well-being of the company’s workforce.
Thorough advance preparation is pivotal to achieving optimal conditions across the board in any sale or transfer.
At Houdart A&C, our focus moves beyond technicalities as we provide an overview of your prospective transaction and your goals. In doing so, we engineer a system for successful and timely transactions.
Leveraging a director’s personal tax situation
Houdart A&C completes its clients’ personal tax returns.
We also advise our clients on how to optimise their tax situation in their day-to-day operations. For instance, we assist our clients in deciding on a compensation package and an investment income plan, and whether or not to found a property investment company (société civile immobilière, SCI) for their real estate holdings. We also offer consulting on company sale and transfer opportunities, such as ensuring tax efficiency on transferable securities’ and real estate capital gains, establishing holding companies and assessing conditions to implement transfer tax rebate schemes.
Insurance
Our asset management services also includes assisstance for company directors in choosing health insurance policies and individual and collective death and disability policies. We help directors with all formalities needed to apply the schemes, so as to avoid any risk of adjustment related to taxation and social security contributions. Houdart A&C also reviews opportunities to set up retirement pension schemes and roll out company savings plans.
Our corporate real estate investment strategy
More often than not, real estate investment can be beneficial to company directors, striking the right balance between their company’s interests and their own personal assets. However, simulations need to be conducted for such transactions from a financing and tax standpoint, to decide on the most value-accretive technical strategy for the director. Decisions must be made between debt-financed investment, leasing with an exercise of option, creation of a property investment company (société civile immobilière, SCI), tax scheme (income tax [impôt sur le revenu, IR] or corporate tax [impôt sur les sociétés, IS]), temporary beneficial ownership, construction leasehold, etc.
Our teams collaborate seamlessly with company directors from the kick-off phase right through to the support stage with financing institutions to secure funds.