Ask HN: My company is about to get acquired, how do I best manage this money? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: My company is about to get acquired, how do I best manage this money?

#11

Post by bbcbasic » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 5:01 AM UTC

seainvest wrote: post #10

I was in a similar position a couple years ago, and I can pass on the advice that I was given from financial planners/etc. Much of the advice that can be given is dependent on what you want to do with your windfall. If you do bring in $1 MM or more, you theoretically will have enough to live out the rest of your life in a 4/5-star hotel on a beach somewhere. You could travel for a while, or just hang out, or you coul…

And the question with real estate is whether to leverage. And that would depend on if you want to spend the rental income now (like a retirement) or aim for higher capital appreciation (but back to work!)

Re: Ask HN: My company is about to get acquired, how do I best manage this money?

#12

Post by MalcolmDiggs » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 6:01 AM UTC

My honest advice is to do absolutely nothing with it for a few months. Don't move it, don't spend it, don't invest it, don't loan it to friends...and most importantly don't tell anybody about it.

Just give yourself some time to cool off and get over the adrenaline-pumping feeling of "holy shit, look at all that money". This will likely take a while to wear off. Only once you're calm about it should you trust yourself making decisions.

Re: Ask HN: My company is about to get acquired, how do I best manage this money?

#13

Post by lingua_franca » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 3:29 PM UTC

seainvest wrote: post #10

I was in a similar position a couple years ago, and I can pass on the advice that I was given from financial planners/etc. Much of the advice that can be given is dependent on what you want to do with your windfall. If you do bring in $1 MM or more, you theoretically will have enough to live out the rest of your life in a 4/5-star hotel on a beach somewhere. You could travel for a while, or just hang out, or you coul…

after taxes he will take home just $1+mm, far from enough to live out the rest of hist life in a 4/5-star hotel on a beach somewhere. u need at least $10mm for that

Re: Ask HN: My company is about to get acquired, how do I best manage this money?

#14

Post by notahacker » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 8:00 PM UTC

lingua_franca wrote: post #13

seainvest wrote: post #10

I was in a similar position a couple years ago, and I can pass on the advice that I was given from financial planners/etc. Much of the advice that can be given is dependent on what you want to do with your windfall. If you do bring in $1 MM or more, you theoretically will have enough to live out the rest of your life in a 4/5-star hotel on a beach somewhere. You could travel for a while, or just hang out, or you coul…

after taxes he will take home just $1+mm, far from enough to live out the rest of hist life in a 4/5-star hotel on a beach somewhere. u need at least $10mm for that

If you scratch 4/5 star hotel and replace it with "fairly nice property" there's plenty of parts of Asia where he could live well off the interest on $1m for the foreseeable future.

Re: Ask HN: My company is about to get acquired, how do I best manage this money?

#15

Post by cylinder » Fri, Dec 05, 2014, 8:57 PM UTC

First issue is, do you have to cash out your shares? Or can you exchange them for shares in the parent company? If shares, you may want to defer cashing everything, you can slowly sell shares as you need them, keeping yourself in a lower tax bracket (capital gains taxed as normal income in Aus). Or you can borrow against them.

You need a professional financial and tax advisor. Always go independent (not affiliated with a large bank/institution) and fee-based (not commission).