Company succession in danger: 41,000 companies are looking for successors!

Company succession in danger: 41,000 companies are looking for successors!

In North Rhine-Westphalia, there will be significant challenges for company succession in the coming years. Loud wirtschaft-aktuell.de Around 41,000 companies are due to be handed over in the next ten years. This affects around 220,000 employees in the region who are subject to social security contributions. To shed light on this topic, the 9th IHK Corporate Succession Forum took place in the CreativQuartier Fürst Leopold in Dorsten, where 200 entrepreneurs and potential successors found out about the complex processes involved in handing over a company.

Sven Wolf, the IHK division manager, emphasized the need for early and professional preparation for the generational change. He emphasized that the process is often complex and rarely straightforward. IHK Vice President Melanie Baum stated that the previous “family automatism”, in which successions took place automatically within the family, no longer exists. Only just under half of companies with more than 20 employees are pursuing a family succession solution, a dramatic decline compared to 71 percent in 2016.

Current developments in succession planning

The IHK reports that the current situation represents not just a local, but a comprehensive regional challenge: Across North Rhine-Westphalia, it is expected that over the next ten years there will be 305,000 family businesses looking for suitable successors. In addition, current studies, such as the IHK follow-up report 2024, show ihk-arnsberg.de that the number of companies ready for handover will increase by 40,000. What is particularly worrying is that 80 percent of companies have difficulty finding external successors.

Another alarming result of the surveys shows that 12 percent of the relinquishing entrepreneurs cite a lack of motivation as the reason for their impending handover. This could lead to an increase in company closures, as one in ten companies say they cannot find a successor and are therefore planning to close.

Support from the IHK

Experts such as Prof. Anne Heider from WIFU were present in the discussion about succession planning, who emphasized the importance of communication and cohesion in family businesses. Helmut Schulte, who handed over management of his company to his daughter Johanna in 2018, and Friedbert Menke, who gradually prepared his son Robert for company management, made it clear how important sound preparation is. André Hesseling, who took over a company outside the family, also incorporated the former owner's knowledge into his new role.

In order to secure the existence of companies and jobs in the region, Melanie Baum appealed to entrepreneurs to take advantage of the IHK's wide range of offers. This includes information events, individual consultations and the placement of successors. Owners over 55 in particular are advised to start succession planning early on, as five to ten years of preparation are often necessary. Only 40 percent of companies plan an intra-family handover.

The results of the surveys show that over 50 percent of family business owners are older than 55, which further underlines the urgency of the discussion about business succession. The connection between demographic developments and the challenges arising from succession will continue to be of central importance in the coming years.