Company sold: what do you do with the sale proceeds?

After selling your company, assets that were tied up for years in a single business suddenly sit in an account. Often in your holding company, sometimes privately, and sometimes partly still with the buyer. The first step is to determine what you actually have. Which amount has already been received, which taxes and obligations still follow, and what will you need in the coming years? Only then do you divide the assets across destinations, each with its own function.

In this knowledge article you will read how to take those steps, what role physical precious metals can play in that, and what practical matters are involved.

From entrepreneur to asset owner: what changes?

After selling a company, what mainly changes is the way your assets work: from a single business over which you had direct influence, to assets that are spread across different destinations.

As an entrepreneur you personally managed customers, costs and investments. With investments you determine the allocation, the costs and the duration, but the market determines a large part of the outcome. At the same time your assets may need to cover part of the income that previously came from your business.

It also supports personal plans, such as retiring earlier, starting a business again or keeping your partner financially independent. Those plans determine how much money you need and when.

Founder Rolf van Zanten of The Silver Mountain notes in conversations after an exit that entrepreneurs mainly ask about diversification and preserving what they have built, and less about a rising gold price. Ownership, storage and marketability frequently come up.

How much of the sale proceeds is actually available?

Available means the part of the proceeds you have already received and that is not needed for taxes, obligations or expenses that are already committed. That amount is often lower than the sale price in the contract.

Work with your accountant or acquisition advisor to identify:

• which amount has been received, and by whom: by you privately or by your holding company;
• which taxes, advisory fees and obligations in the BV still apply;
• which portion has been withheld as security for warranties or claims from the buyer;
• what you need for living expenses, large expenditures and new plans.

Earn-out and seller loan

In many transactions, part of the purchase price follows later. An earn-out is a part of the purchase price that depends on future performance or conditions; it may turn out lower or be cancelled.

With a seller loan you finance part of the acquisition: the buyer owes you money and pays interest and repayment, as long as its financial position permits. Both are not a bank deposit, but uncertain future receipts. They also keep you economically tied to your former company.

Taxes and the form of the transaction

Which tax you pay depends on the transaction. When selling a sole proprietorship or partnership, cessation profit (stakingswinst) may arise. This is the profit when ending the business that counts as income. If a BV sells its business via an asset-liability transaction, the profit falls under corporate income tax.

If your holding has sold the shares of the operating company, the proceeds remain in the holding and the participation exemption (deelnemingsvrijstelling) may apply under conditions. That is a scheme whereby profit on shares in a subsidiary remains tax-free. If the holding later distributes to you personally, tax will then still be due.

A temporary destination while you prepare the plan

Making a plan takes time. ABN AMRO advises entrepreneurs, for example, to temporarily place the proceeds in a savings account and let the sale settle. Pay attention to the deposit guarantee: it protects up to € 100,000 per account holder per bank, and accounts under different brand names of one bank are counted together.

A BV is considered a separate account holder. The temporarily increased protection up to € 500,000 applies only in situations described by DNB and only to natural persons, not to a BV. A business sale therefore does not automatically provide extra protection.

What role will the different parts of your assets have?

A practical way to divide the proceeds is to give each part a purpose: immediately available, income, growth or diversification. Money set aside for a tax bill in a few months calls for different choices than capital you can do without for years. Paying off debts can also be a destination. That saves interest, but the money is no longer available afterwards.

The table below compares six purposes for your new assets.

An investment fund is a form, not a category: an equity fund behaves very differently from a bond fund. With private equity, a commitment can also mean that you must contribute more later, so you cannot lock that money up elsewhere.

What role can physical precious metals play after selling a company?

After an exit your wealth is no longer tied to a single company. Physical gold can provide a counterbalance: an asset that is not dependent on a company’s results or on repayment by a bank or other party.

What physical gold and silver can offer you

• Ownership without a counterparty. Physical precious metal is not a claim and not a promise from someone else. You own the metal itself, at home or allocated in your name with a storage provider such as Edelmetaal Beheer Nederland. With a gold ETF or an unallocated gold account you instead have a claim against an issuer. You can read more about that in our explanation of gold ETFs.
• Diversification. Gold and silver often move differently than stocks and bonds over many periods. As a result, they can dampen the fluctuations of your total wealth.
• Globally tradable. Precious metals have a price everywhere in the world, which is continuously determined. Recognized bars and coins are internationally recognizable and easily tradable.
• Long-term purchasing power. Over very long periods gold has largely preserved its purchasing power, while money lost value through inflation. Central banks themselves hold substantial gold reserves, including to diversify their reserves.
• No VAT on investment gold. Even for a holding, no VAT is charged on investment gold. That is a clear difference compared with silver bars.

What you should take into account

Gold does not pay interest or dividends. Returns come only from the price, which is quoted in dollars. That price can also disappoint for extended periods: after the peak of January 1980 it took almost three decades in dollar terms before that price was reached again. In the initial panic phase of a crisis gold sometimes falls as well, because investors free up cash. You can read more about this in our article on gold during a financial crisis.

In addition, when buying you pay a premium and when storing you pay a custody fee; how that pricing structure works is explained in our article on why physical gold is more expensive than the spot price.

Therefore gold is less suitable for money you will soon need as a fixed amount in euros, or for a need for regular income.

How much gold or silver within a portfolio?

There is no percentage of gold or silver that is right for every entrepreneur after an exit. The size follows from your wealth plan, and percentages (often 10%) that you encounter online are starting points used by others.

The Silver Mountain does not provide personal recommendations on this. The following considerations come first:

• Purpose and horizon: what is the gold for and how long can you do without it?
• Your total wealth: a business property, an earn-out, a seller loan or a new company also count as risks.
• Liquidity: which portion must be available as a fixed amount within a few years?
• Capacity to bear losses: can you absorb it if your gold is worth less than at purchase for years?
• Total costs: premium, spread, shipping or storage and insurance, which you pay again with every purchase and sale.

Whether the gold price is now "too high" no one can reliably predict; you only recognize a bottom or ideal entry point in hindsight. Buying all at once or in phases is therefore mainly an implementation choice. With a large one-off purchase your price is fixed at a single moment. By buying in phases you spread the purchase over multiple moments, so that a single unfavorable moment weighs less heavily.

Physical precious metals provide tangible ownership without a counterparty and can help you better diversify your wealth.

Buying precious metals from the holding company or personally?

Whether you buy from your holding company or personally is primarily a fiscal and legal choice that is independent of the product. It helps to separate three matters.

1. The structure of your assets

If you buy through your holding company, the results on the precious metals fall under corporate income tax. The participation exemption that may have applied to the capital gain on your operating company does not apply to later results on gold. If the holding later distributes to you personally, dividend tax and box 2, the tax on income from a substantial interest, will apply. The withheld dividend tax is generally creditable against your income tax.

If you buy personally, precious metals fall into box 3, under other assets. In 2026 the Tax Authority calculates on investments and other assets using an assumed return of 6.00%, above a tax-free allowance of € 59.357 per person, at a rate of 36%. If your actual return was lower, you can report that under the current rules.

Also bear in mind that the new box 3 system the cabinet envisages from 2028, including a different treatment of physical precious metals, is not yet final. You can read the status in our article on goud in box 3.

2. The product

Gold is considered investment gold when it concerns bars with a purity of at least 995/1,000 and a weight accepted by the gold market, or gold coins with a purity of at least 900/1,000 that were minted after 1800 and meet the further conditions of the Tax Authority.

Not every gold product therefore falls under the VAT exemption. You can find more explanation in our article on what investment gold is.

3. The VAT treatment and the storage structure

A customs warehouse is storage under customs supervision, where goods can be held without import duties being due. Edelmetaal Beheer Nederland stores the silver there with Loomis International in Zurich. That no VAT is charged follows from the customs status of the silver, not just from its location in Switzerland. On import into the Netherlands, transport and insurance costs may also be included in the base for import VAT. You can read more on our page about VAT-free silver.

Also note the following points:

• A BV, a business invoice or a VAT number does not automatically entitle you to VAT deduction. Have the VAT position of your holding assessed after the exit, because it may have changed.
• Not every silver coin falls under the margin scheme. The way the seller delivers determines this, not the coin form or the status as legal tender.
• VAT-exempt is not tax-free. Corporate income tax, box 2 and box 3 continue to apply.
• Have the tax treatment of the purchase and of a later sale assessed in advance.

Product choice, storage and sale: how does physical ownership work?

With physical precious metals, weight, ownership, custody and sales terms together determine how flexible and controllable your holdings are.

Coins or bars

Large bars usually have a lower premium per gram than coins, but a kilo bar is sold in a single transaction. Smaller units cost more per gram and allow you to sell part of your holding flexibly later.

The bid price on resale also varies by product type; the current percentages we offer are on the website of Inkoop Edelmetaal.

Keep yourself or have it stored

Keeping it yourself gives you a tangible possession, but you must arrange security and insurance yourself. Check whether your policy covers precious metals and what limits apply, including for holdings of your BV. With professional storage, a specialised party stores the metal on your behalf for a storage fee. Access is then via a request for delivery or sale. And insurance covers theft or damage, not a falling metal price.

Ownership: allocated and properly documented

Allocated means that specific bars or coins are assigned to you; segregated means your metal is kept separate from that of others. When stored via Edelmetaal Beheer Nederland the precious metal is allocated and kept in your name, legally separated from the assets of Edelmetaal Beheer Nederland and The Silver Mountain, in vault locations in the Netherlands or, in the customs warehouses, at Loomis in Zürich.

Keep your invoice in the name of the buyer and the storage agreement with weight, type and, where applicable, serial number. Also have recorded who may give instructions; for a BV that is the question of who can sign on behalf of the company.

How to sell back in the future?

Thanks to the sale certainty through our sister company Inkoop Edelmetaal, you can easily sell your precious metals back. Under the purchase terms we always buy, regardless of how the price moves. After inspection, payment is made exclusively by bank transfer and within 24 hours.

For storage you place the order from your account, and silver in the depot is sold without the silver leaving the depot. You receive the price at that moment; a fixed return in euros is not guaranteed.

More information can be found on our page about selling to us.

Discuss your options during an orientation meeting

Would you like to invest part of your sale proceeds in precious metals and are you curious about the options? We can advise you during an introductory meeting.

In an introductory meeting you discuss with a precious metals specialist from The Silver Mountain how a purchase of physical precious metals proceeds in practice, from product choice to storage and sale.

The meeting is intended for purchases from € 10.000, lasts about 45 minutes and takes place by appointment at our experience-center in The Hague or Villa Elias in Baarn.

What you will know after this meeting:

• Which product suits you: coins or bars, and which weight. Smaller pieces cost a bit more per gram, but you can later sell them more easily in parts.
• Delivery or storage: you have the precious metals delivered to your home, or you have them stored for you in a secure vault.
• Buy in a single transaction or in parts: you buy everything at once, or you spread the purchase over multiple occasions.
• What it costs: the current purchase price, the price you would receive on resale at that moment, the premium (the amount you pay above the intrinsic value of the metal) and any costs for delivery, storage or later shipment from the vault of your precious metals.
• How your ownership is arranged: which documents prove that the precious metals are yours.
• How you sell later: what you need to do if you want to sell your gold or silver again.

Would you like to discuss your situation at your leisure? Then schedule an introductory meeting in The Hague or Baarn.