The quiet handover

Some of the best companies in Europe are not famous. They make a component, run a regional logistics service or keep a hundred customers' machines running. They were built over decades by an owner who knows every client by name. Many of those owners are now thinking about the next chapter, and the numbers are larger than most people realise.

What the figures say

In Germany, KfW Research reported in January 2026 that about 545,000 owners of small and medium-sized firms plan to hand over their business by the end of 2029. Almost as many, about 569,000, expect to close instead. Of those planning to close, 47 per cent say there is no interest in the family in carrying on. More than half of all Mittelstand owners are now 55 or older.

France tells a similar story. A Bpifrance Le Lab study found that around 370,000 companies may need a new owner by 2030. In an earlier study of family-owned small and mid-sized firms, 65 per cent of leaders said they would like to pass the business on within the family, yet 47 per cent of those in their sixties had not yet put a plan in writing.

In the United Kingdom, family firms account for about 86 per cent of private businesses and about half of private-sector employment, according to Oxford Economics for the Institute for Family Business. Employee ownership has also become a real option: the number of employee-owned businesses passed 2,400 in 2025.

Closure is not always the only option

A closure is sometimes the right decision. But a closure because nobody prepared is a loss for customers, staff and the owner. Often the successor is not the obvious one. It may be a quiet nephew or niece with the right skills, a long-serving manager, a group of employees or a buyer who shares the founder's values. They are easier to find with five years' notice than with five months'.

What makes a business easy to hand over

Buyers and successors look for the same things: knowledge that is written down rather than held in one head, customers who trust the company and not only the founder, clean numbers and processes that work when the owner is on holiday. These are also the things that make a business stronger today. Good preparation for a handover is simply good management, done a little earlier.

Sensible digital tools help here. A simple, reliable system for orders and customers, documented procedures and honest monthly numbers all make a business more valuable and easier to trust. None of this needs a large investment. It needs time, and an owner who starts.

Starting the conversation

The most difficult step is usually the first conversation, with family, with key staff or with oneself. It helps to separate three questions: what is best for the company, what is fair to the family, and what the owner wants for the next ten years. They rarely have the same answer, and that is normal.

Published 1 October 2026 · © 2026 Habsburg Digital Ltd