Straight answers about how we work.

Established, owner-led businesses in British Columbia with a team beyond the founder and a decision ahead: growth capital, an acquisition, a sale, or succession. We are sector-agnostic, with particular depth in professional and technical services.

With a confidential conversation, followed by a Risk & Opportunity Analysis if there is a fit. The analysis produces a written report the client keeps regardless of whether the engagement continues. Every engagement begins with a Fee Letter.

The managing partner, Spencer Pallone Helm, MBA, leads every mandate personally. Implementation work identified in the Gameplan is delivered by vetted implementers contracted to the client, coordinated by Legatis. Regulated steps are performed by licensed partners, named to the client in writing before they begin.

Consultants typically deliver a report; coaches typically deliver conversations. Legatis is accountable for the plan and stays on the file through the capital, transaction and succession decisions that follow it. The advice is connected to execution and to money.

Yes, with the founder who wants to build an asset rather than a job. The Start-up Program page has the whole program in the open: the plan, the funding thresholds, every start-up loan and grant in BC with its terms, and the free tools.

Both, because they are the same file: a lender reads the financials, a buyer reads the sales engine. The Business Development Plan writes the sales engine down and works out its conversion numbers; as an engagement it is fixed fee and built with you and your sales team.

Our proprietary performance system for teams: six conditions, three lenses, a quarterly cycle. What it is and how it is deployed →

Fixed fees for defined deliverables, and monthly retainers for ongoing advisory and fractional executive work. Financing and transaction mandates start with a retainer, scaled to the work the file needs, followed by a success fee on completion. The retainer covers the preparation and the arranging, and is credited against the success fee. Fee structures are described on our Services page.

A single document, provided before the engagement begins, listing every fee Legatis expects to earn on the file from any source, including any amount paid by a lender or a referral partner. If it is not in the Fee Letter, we do not accept it.

In some cases, yes: a lender may pay a placement fee, and a registered dealer or brokerage may pay a referral fee. Each is documented in a written agreement and disclosed to the client in the Fee Letter and, for registered firms, in the specific written disclosure their regulations require.

These are contracted and paid directly by the client to the professional providing them. Legatis does not mark up or intermediate third-party professional fees.

Legatis leads the preparation, strategy and negotiation of any sale, and leads asset transactions with no real estate component end to end. If the transaction is a sale of shares, the trade itself is executed by one of our registered dealer partners under its own engagement; if it involves real property, one of our licensed brokerages handles that component. Legatis remains your advisor throughout.

Beyond the tax and liability differences your accountant and lawyer will explain, a share sale is a trade in securities under BC law, and only a registered dealer may be in the business of arranging it. An asset sale is not. The structure determines who is legally permitted to run the process.

Registration is a possible future step for the practice. Today, working through an established exempt market dealer gives clients a registered firm with compliance infrastructure, a compliance officer and regulatory oversight already in place, while Legatis provides the strategic advice and continuity the dealer does not.

Never. Funds and securities are held in trust by counsel, the dealer or the brokerage - who does what, activity by activity →

Once a business is on the market, six to twelve months from launch to close is typical, depending on structure, financing and diligence. The preparation before that matters more - the timelines, stage by stage →

Term loans, operating lines, equipment and asset-based facilities, government-guaranteed loans, and layered acquisition financing, from banks, credit unions, government-backed and private institutional lenders. We do not arrange loans secured by real estate, and we do not raise money from private individuals.

A bank offers its own products. A broker prepares the business to be financed, approaches several lenders whose appetite matches the file, and negotiates terms with the benefit of comparison. The difference usually shows in structure, covenants and security rather than headline rate.

Most commercial loans come with conditions you must keep, called covenants, such as a minimum debt service coverage, and a yearly review by the lender. Lender reporting and covenant monitoring covers both, whether or not we arranged the loan.

With the Risk & Opportunity Analysis: each area of the business is rated for the risk built into it and how well that risk is managed, in the same rating structure BC's regulator uses to assess lenders, so lenders recognize it.

Yes. Grant strategy is part of our Funding Options Review, and we work with specialist grant partners on application preparation. See our Grant Resources.

Earlier than most owners expect: three to five years before the intended transition, and immediately if key people are being asked to stay for the long term without a path to ownership.

We design the structure and facilitate agreement among the parties. Tax filings and legal drafting are performed by the client's accountants and counsel, who implement the design.

Often, with the right structure: phased buy-ins, profit-share pools that fund purchases over time, vendor financing from the founder, and where appropriate, lender financing for the buy-in. Designing the affordability is part of the work.

A prepared mandate, with referral terms in writing before the introduction is made. What prepared means, and how the network works →

Our role is strategic advice to the client and coordination of the professional team; the referral agreement reflects that scope. The exact boundary, activity by activity, is on the Legal & Compliance page.

We maintain relationships across the lending spectrum and select lenders by fit for each file. For securities transactions we work with more than one registered dealer partner, and match the firm to the transaction.

Through the Contact page, selecting the partner enquiry option. The managing partner responds to every partner enquiry personally.