About ES Partners
Built for owners with complex structural questions.
Enterprise Stability Partners was established to bring institutional discipline to the planning decisions of private business owners, beginning with diagnosis, not product.
- Founder experience
- More than three decades across financial services, underwriting, real estate and advanced planning
- Method
- Diagnostic-led
- Serves
- Established business owners, often $1M+ in revenue
- Role
- Leads strategy and implementation through our team of qualified professionals
Philosophy
Diagnose before you plan.
You may already have a good CPA, attorney, wealth advisor and other professionals. The problem is that each is usually focused on one piece of the picture. They may not be talking to one another, working from the same assumptions or driving toward the same outcome.
That leaves the business owner in the middle trying to connect the dots. ES Partners begins with the whole structure. We identify what needs attention, establish the priorities and lead the appropriate professionals around one strategy.
ES Partners is diagnostic-led and implementation-capable. When the findings call for action, ES Partners leads implementation through our team of qualified professionals so that business, tax, wealth, retirement, estate, liquidity and succession planning work toward the same objective.
Our commitment is sequencing: structural clarity first, one integrated plan second, and implementation led by ES Partners where the findings warrant it.
Lou Patin
Founder
License# 4377649
With more than three decades of experience in finance, Lou Patin has built his career around complex financial analysis, risk assessment and the decisions that determine whether financial structures and transactions can withstand scrutiny.
Twenty years of that career were dedicated to senior underwriting and operational management roles. The work required more than reviewing financial statements or accepting assumptions at face value. Lou was responsible for verifying documentation, identifying weaknesses, determining whether financial representations were credible, assessing liquidity and cash flow, evaluating collateral and valuation, and ultimately deciding whether capital should be committed.
His underwriting career culminated at one of the nation’s largest banking institutions, where his responsibilities included portfolio products serving high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth business owners and affluent individuals. That exposure gave him a firsthand view of how business ownership, personal wealth, liquidity, credit, valuation and long-term planning intersect — and how sophisticated financial structures can still contain gaps that are easy to overlook when each issue is evaluated separately.
That experience became an important foundation for Enterprise Stability Partners. Lou recognized that many business owners were receiving strategies before anyone had fully tested the assumptions, exposures and financial relationships underlying the business. The Enterprise Stability Diagnostic™ was developed to bring the same discipline of verification, analysis and evidence-based decision-making into the advanced-planning process.
Through the Enterprise Stability Diagnostic™, ES Partners helps owners identify hidden exposure, uncover overlooked financial opportunity, validate material assumptions and establish planning priorities before significant capital is committed or advanced strategies are implemented.
When action is warranted, Lou leads the implementation process through ES Partners and its team of qualified professionals across the appropriate tax, legal, valuation, liquidity, risk, succession and wealth disciplines.
ES Partners serves clients nationally. Lou and members of the professional team maintain applicable licenses and credentials in multiple states, as appropriate.
“The most expensive strategy is often the one built around the wrong diagnosis.”
- Role
- Founder, Enterprise Stability Partners, LLC
- Focus
- Structural risk and hidden opportunity for business owners
- Approach
- Diagnose first; plan only on validated findings
- Works with
- The owner and our team of qualified professionals, with existing advisors where appropriate
How ES Partners works
From diagnosis to one strategy.
01 →
Diagnose
Test the structure, the assumptions and the documents before any strategy is proposed.
02 →
Establish priorities
Decide what needs attention first, based on validated findings rather than assumptions.
03
Lead implementation
ES Partners leads our team of qualified professionals around one strategy, with your existing advisors where appropriate.
How we work with others
Our team of qualified professionals.
ES Partners leads the strategy and implementation process through our team of qualified professionals. Existing client advisors may participate where appropriate, provided they are willing and able to take part in the agreed strategy. When additional specialized capabilities are needed, or when an existing advisor is unable or unwilling to participate, the appropriate professional is brought into our team of qualified professionals to complete the work.
CPA / Tax Advisor
ES Partners can work with the client’s existing CPA when that advisor is willing and able to participate in the agreed strategy. Validated findings involving entity structure, compensation, tax strategy and exit planning can be shared for review and implementation. When additional tax expertise is required — or when the existing CPA is unable or unwilling to implement the recommended planning — the appropriate CPA or tax professional can be brought into our team of qualified professionals to complete the work. ES Partners continues to lead the strategy and implementation process throughout.
Financial advisor
Keeps the asset relationship; ES Partners supplies the structural reading that planning should rest on.
Attorney
Drafts or amends buy-sell, operating and estate documents where the diagnostic finds them out of step.
Liquidity & risk
Where a strategy requires a specific professional license or credential, that component is completed by the appropriately licensed or credentialed member of our professional team, with ES Partners leading the overall strategy.
Determine how structurally stable your business is.
The Preliminary Diagnostic is complimentary for qualified business owners, needs no documents to start, and carries no obligation.