Month: October 2025

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that the dates of a summit meeting between President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump had yet to be set, and added that neither Putin nor Trump wanted to waste time.

• Goldman Sachs published a new 25-page guide for founders generating life-changing wealth.
• Among the report’s primary takeaways: Plan early to structure deals and capital considerations.
• Goldnan partner Kerry Blum says founders “only get one first sale”—so it’s critical to get it right.

Dealmaking is heating up again, and founders eyeing an IPO or sale are facing a new kind of challenge: what to do with the sudden wealth that follows.

A new 25-page report published by Goldman’s private wealth and investment banking professionals lays out the decisions founders need to prepare for once they cash out. It outlines six steps that company leaders should take: be clear about your business’s future, consider tax structures, set up a family and estate plan, organize liquidity, factor in existing loans and liabilities, protect your assets and family, and develop a philanthropic strategy.

The message is especially important for founders right now: mergers were up this past quarter, and the IPO market was regaining steam before the government shutdown. But the bank didn’t generate the report because of the hot merger market; instead, its findings are meant to be educational for founders anytime, Kerry Blum — global head of the firm’s equity structuring group, which helps some of the world’s wealthiest business people structure their portfolios — told Business Insider.

The report — “Beyond the Build: A Wealth Planning Guide for a Business Exit or IPO” — walks readers through how to structure a deal, manage new liquidity, and prepare the next generation for a sudden influx of wealth.

“When I look at the work that we do with founders and entrepreneurs, we really have to think about the entire life cycle” across the corporate and personal lenses, said Blum, a Goldman partner.

Here’s a look at four of their top takeaways.

Start planning early

Founders should consider “personal planning” — how they’ll handle their newfound assets — around the time they begin diligence on potential acquirers or even before. Why? “The timeline of a delay could be derailed entirely by delays stemming from personal planning objectives missed in the early stages,” the bank warns.

Founders should be upfront about their goals — including the selling price and ongoing ownership structures — and should be deliberate in selecting the right exit plan. A merger? A private sale? Sales and public offerings can convert years of illiquid equity into cash, the report says, suggesting that the sudden liquidity landslide can be overwhelming without support.

Each path comes with its own tax considerations, as well as the level of control, cash, and future influence the founder will maintain. “I’ve seen entrepreneurs who very much want to maintain a sense of control as part of the exit,” Blum said, adding: “I’ve seen entrepreneurs who have decided that maybe in their next phase they want to pass off some of the operational elements.”

Get the right team together

Assembling a strong team well before a transaction closes can help crystallize such decisions, the bank says. At Goldman, “in many cases, it will be that the banking team is well engaged with the client, and they think there’s an opportunity for the client to benefit from the expertise that we can offer on the wealth management side. And so they will introduce a two-way dialogue,” Blum said.

To that end, Goldman urged, do not delay in appointing these trusted advisors. CEOs need to bring together not just their C-suite counterparts, but also personal advisors, including wealth managers and trust officers. The questions this team can help you answer are manifold: Should you sell to a strategic or a financial sponsor? Is a public offering really the right route?

“We try to make sure founders carefully evaluate how their day-to-day would be different and the type of scrutiny they’d face if taking their company public, compared with selling to a sponsor or strategic buyer,” Alekhya Uppalapti — a managing director in the investment bank’s global technology, media, and telecommunications group — says in the report.

Tackle tax and estate planning

The report’s most technical section delves into different kinds of business structures that founders should consider: an S-corporation doesn’t pay federal taxes at the corporate level, whereas a C-corporation pays taxes on its profits.

Navigating the thicket of this jargon can be confusing, so the firm suggests using an estate planning attorney to “align” immediate-term goals around tax efficiency with long-term needs like setting up a professional trustee to protect newfound wealth. Trusts such as grantor-retained annuity trusts or charitable lead trusts can help transfer wealth and reduce tax exposure.

Blum said tailoring those choices to each client’s objectives is one of the most complex steps in the process. “That is certainly one where understanding the individual’s goals and objectives,” she said, “whether it’s regional or generational wealth planning, philanthropy, et cetera, is incredibly important. And matching that with the jurisdictional considerations is key to getting it right.”

Beyond that, entrepreneurs should consider organizing a will, a revocable or living trust, a healthcare proxy, and guidance for end-of-life medical instructions, the bank added.

Prepare yourself for the new realities of wealth

It is not only the founder’s life that changes after a major sale or IPO, the report suggests, but also the lives of family members. Goldman’s guide devotes an entire section to preparing the next generation.

“Regularly scheduled family meetings, which can be facilitated with the support of your financial advisor, can help effectively convey lessons on the responsibilities of wealth and philanthropy,” it says. Blum said Goldman brings clients together in small forums where they can share insights and experiences, a think tank of sorts for those about to step into a new way of life.

Privacy is also a consideration. “Different types of transactions bring different levels of visibility,” Blum added. The report recommends consulting your financial advisor about a wide range of topics, including physical and digital security protocols, as well as private aviation.

• Virginia Giuffre said she was afraid to name some of her abusers in her memoir.
• Some of the men threatened to ruin her financially with litigation, Giuffre wrote in her book.
• She feared a person she identified as a “former Prime Minister” would hurt her if she named him.

In a memoir written before her suicide, Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre wrote she was afraid to name some of the men she was sexually trafficked to.

Some of those men, she wrote, threatened to ruin her financially by keeping her tied up in court.

“There are other men whom I was trafficked to who have threatened me in another way: by asserting that they will use litigation to bankrupt me,” she wrote.

“Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice,” written with the journalist Amy Wallace and published Tuesday by Knopf, details Giuffre’s years in Epstein’s orbit.

According to Giuffre, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sexually abused her and trafficked her to “scores of wealthy, powerful people” in the early 2000s, when she was a teenager.

While Giuffre’s book names some of those people — like Prince Andrew — the identities of others are not made clear.

Giuffre said she was particularly frightened of a man she called “the former Prime Minister,” who she believed “will seek to hurt me if I say his name here.”

“He repeatedly choked me until I lost consciousness and took pleasure in seeing me in fear for my life,” Giuffre wrote of the former head of state. “Horrifically, the Prime Minister laughed when he hurt me and got more aroused when I begged him to stop.”

Giuffre also said she was terrified of one man whom she saw having a sexual encounter with Epstein.

“I have the same fears about another man whom I was forced to have sex with many times — a man whom I also saw having sexual contact with Epstein himself,” she wrote. “I would love to identify him here. But this man is very wealthy and very powerful, and I fear that he, too, might engage me in expensive, life-ruining litigation.”

Giuffre, who died in April, said some of the men who sexually abused her issued threats to her lawyers.

“One of those men’s names has come up repeatedly in various court filings, and in response, he has told my lawyers that if I talk about him publicly, he will employ his vast resources to keep me in court for the rest of my life,” she wrote in the book. “While I have named him in sworn depositions and identified him to the FBI, I fear that if I do so again here, my family will bear the emotional and financial brunt of that decision.”

Giuffre was among the most prominent Epstein accusers who publicly told her story, speaking out against the wealthy and well-connected financier.

She received settlements from Epstein and Prince Andrew in civil lawsuits, and filed a defamation lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell that spilled much of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation into open view.

Giuffre had several high-powered lawyers on her side, including David Boies and Sigrid McCawley of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, Florida-based attorney Brad Edwards, and former federal judge Paul Cassell.

Epstein killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for trafficking girls to him for sex.

In her book, Giuffre wrote she was trafficked to “a gubernatorial candidate who was soon to win election in a Western state and a former US senator,” and that she had sex with a billionaire while his pregnant wife slept in an adjoining room, among others.

Giuffre previously named individuals fitting some of those descriptions in court documents, but they are not all named in her book.