In his recent blog post “Pent-Up Transactional Need or Demand?,” Chris Mercer (Mercer Capital) wrote that the need to transfer or liquefy massive wealth held in private companies is substantially greater in early 2011 than it was during 2004-2007.  Why? “Because little happened in the intervening years of financial crisis,” he says. Baby boomer business owners can take advantage of improving transactional markets and sell their businesses or prepare their businesses for sale, install an ESOP, engage in a leveraged recapitalization, or consider a special dividend to reduce excess assets.

“If you are an adviser to business owners, now would be a good time to schedule meetings with your Baby Boomer clients to bring up the issues involved with intergenerational wealth transfers one more time,” he adds.