Across every lifecycle stage, steering your company through an ownership transition requires a clear vision of your desired outcome and adequate funding to propel you toward it. Transition financing is the point in strategic planning where both those key requirements intersect—and in addition to helping you navigate near-term obstacles, transition financing can also be instrumental in helping you seize opportunities that can produce long-term benefits.

“When thoughtfully and carefully planned and executed, transition financing can be one of the best opportunities to help realize your current and long-term goals,” says DeVon Lang, North Texas regional president for Truist. “Transition financing can take a lot of different forms to support business and personal objectives.”

Whether your company is selling a majority or minority stake, executing a partner buy-sell, or passing leadership to the next generation, Truist Business Lifecycle Advisory is designed to help turn these moments of change into catalysts for long-term success.

Lang shares a foundational approach to help companies navigate transition financing across each stage of the business lifecycle—showcasing the tactical considerations that can help you identify, select, and implement optimal transition financing solutions.

Lang has seen more than once how conversation between Truist and a client can uncover optimal structure in a deal. He tells the story of a Texas-based client who assumed only a few funding options would fit his transition. “Through continued discussions about the client’s objectives, the team demonstrated how including a customized set of covenants could expand financing alternatives and allow greater term flexibility,” says Lang. “We were able to package, then fine-tune terms until both sides were happy with the outcome.”

In each case, Lang emphasizes that months of regular, collaborative conversations revealed those priorities. Once uncovered, those priorities were instrumental in tailoring transition financing solutions that met each owner’s preferences and post-transition needs. 

Discussing what might go wrong is a crucial part of planning. Unforeseen developments can reshape your goals and require flexibility in your financing plan. An unexpected medical diagnosis or injury to a key team or family member, for example, could suddenly impact your transition plans. “Hundreds of scenarios like that are possible—none of which can be exactly predicted but should be considered in the planning process,” says Lang.

This is where your relationship manager and a one-team approach can play a crucial role. Their wide-ranging transition planning experience can help you quickly spot and plan for any number of potential negative scenarios that could impact your financing and leadership transition plans—positioning you to confidently adjust if and when the unexpected occurs. 

Unexpected change can be positive. Anticipating a windfall moment tends to be easier with the help of an experienced, objective relationship manager. Without that type of partner, you’re more likely to plan exclusively for what could go wrong and neglect the possibility that your years of hard work might also suddenly produce well-deserved, if unanticipated, opportunities.

Lang recalls a family-owned manufacturing company in Texas. At the direction of the close-knit father and son overseeing operations, the company had mapped out its family business transition over several years and was in a position to make the move. The father was at the age he wanted to retire, and the son had essentially been the day-to-day CEO for over a decade. They’d selected what they felt was the pitch-perfect financing solution, anticipated possible threats to the plan, and had the approval of all key stakeholders.

Just before the solution was finalized, they received an unsolicited buyout offer from a private equity firm that was too good to turn down. They had to scramble to seize the opportunity.

“They were well prepared to deal with potentially negative outcomes during the transition but were taken off guard by that positive, unsolicited interaction,” says Lang.

This sort of scenario is a more frequent occurrence than owners might suppose. Lang points out that with the growing prevalence of private equity, family offices, and other types of investor interest, owners are fielding offers they haven’t previously contemplated. “These offers pop up, and without a game plan for how you’ll react when they do, you’re suddenly racing to work out sale details and simultaneously trying to balance company finances with personal wealth concerns in a new and unexpected context,” says Lang. “It’s one of those times when the help we provide and our objective understanding of your company’s worth and appeal to outside buyers can be invaluable.”

As transition financing planning unfolds, you may also need to evaluate:

• Creating trust structures to support personal wealth planning
• Adjusting tax or regulatory planning to reflect changes at federal, local, and state levels
• Modifying your timeline if market changes suggest a more or less optimal outcome
• Monitoring labor markets, tech advances, or AI tools that could ease or alter the trajectory of your transition
• Generating buy-in from stakeholders who may not yet support your transition
• Reviewing financial statement quality to ensure adequate quality for proper due diligence

It all might seem like a lot to manage—but your relationship manager and banking team are here to help design solutions, not just implement your decisions.

“The cornerstones of our financing model—of Truist’s entire commercial bank—are local connectivity and intellectual capital,” says Lang. “Our relationship managers in North Texas have decades of combined experience in the region, handling every aspect of business transitions across each lifecycle stage. They’re not your sole Truist resource, but more like a master of ceremonies presiding over a team of industry professionals that deliver custom insights and solutions that help you transition upward as well as onward.”