Unregulated company succession is becoming an ever greater burden for small and medium-sized businesses. This is because more than 70% of all family businesses are not prepared, or are inadequately prepared, for the emergency.

The figures from the Institute for SME Research (IFM) in Bonn are clear: by 2018, a good 135,000 family businesses with around two million jobs will have to find a new boss. Ten years ago, two-thirds of the generation change was organised within the family, but this model is currently used in less than 40% of all business successions.

Fewer successors within the family

In times of demographic change, handing over the entrepreneurial baton to external successors is a crucial issue for the future of the regional economy. This is especially true for the regions of Osnabrück and Münster, Grafschaft Bentheim and the Weser-Ems region, which are strongly characterised by small and medium-sized enterprises.

Due to the good economic situation, there are fewer start-ups than external successors looking for interesting companies. A Lack of entrepreneurs threatens.

Professional support for transferors

With the opening of its eighth location, KERN ? Die Nachfolgespezialisten now also assists those changing staff with company succession in the greater Osnabrück and Münster area. The management of the location will be taken over with immediate effect by Ingo Claus. A graduate in business administration, he has many years of executive and management experience in family businesses and extensive expertise in investment management.

KERN ? The succession specialists have been specialising in advising on corporate succession and generational change in medium-sized businesses since 2004. The own experience of all KERN partners in family-internal succession or in the transfer of medium-sized companies is of decisive importance.

Unregulated business succession is highly emotional

Due to our own history, we know the challenges of this highly sensitive and emotional topic very well,” says Ingo Claus. He observes that company succession is a difficult topic for many entrepreneurs. An unforeseen emergency makes the risks of an unregulated succession painfully aware. About 70% of all entrepreneurs have not made provisions for an emergency,” Claus continues.

Good preparation for business succession is important

It is important to plan the company succession early and strategically. After all, a succession project takes two to three years on average. Consideration of emotional factors is just as important as the preparation of an entrepreneurial emergency kit, the preparation of a company valuation or an exposé. At the same time, tax and legal issues can already be clarified in the context of drafting contracts as well as financing and funding options.

In the meantime, business mediation is playing an increasingly important role in company succession and especially in the change of generations within the family. As neutral business mediators, we have already been able to successfully resolve a whole series of conflicts in family businesses or in business succession,” says Ingo Claus.