Hivest Financial is a financial advisory firm.

 

Press

23 Jun

Posted at 17:22h in Press by

Dianne Hively was a partner and CFO at a financial services firm more than a decade ago when she got divorced. She and her then-husband didn’t have a prenuptial agreement. Though the company was losing money and had very little value on paper, her ex was awarded a percentage–starting at 50 percent and declining to zero over five years–of anything Hively got out of it. (In the end, that didn’t add up to much.)

Today, Hively is happily remarried. She’s also the president of Hivest Financial. She wishes that, in her earlier marriage, she had taken the kind of financial advice she now gives clients for a living. Some of her tips:

1. Don’t make it personal. Asking your spouse for a covenant to protect your property if the marriage implodes is awkward. But when your property is a business, “it’s not just about you,” says Hively. Investors, employees, suppliers, customers, and extended family may also rely on the stability of your company. Explaining this can reassure a loved one that the paperwork doesn’t show a lack of trust…

[Click Here] to read the entire article from INC.

11 May

Posted at 17:38h in Press by

Dianne Hively, 42, is a partner at Chicago-based Red Granite LLC, which advises high-net-worth individuals and small-business owners. Previously a partner in a privately held financial services firm, she went through a divorce and had no prenuptial agreement or shareholder agreement to turn to. She wishes she did.

In the end, her ex-husband won a declining share of the business over time. Ms. Hively advises clients to seriously consider prenups and buy-sell agreements in the early planning stages of their business.
“You don’t go into a marriage thinking you’re going to get a divorce,” Ms. Hively says, “but it’s really important to think about it before things get ugly.” …
[Click Here] to read the entire article from Crain’s