SUCCESSION PLANNING
Advisory for Multigenerational Family Enterprises
Should your family enterprise pass to the next generation? Can that generation can bear the cost of the transition?
Succession is not, and should not, be a transaction. It’s the most complex emotional and structural challenge a family enterprise will face. I know this because I lived inside it for 36 years. I was absorbed into the business before a genuine choice on my part was available.
I was shaped by expectations that were never spoken and so couldn’t be refused. Eventually, I was confronted with the question of whether the same pattern should be passed to my own sons, or should it be deliberately interrupted.
The economics of succession do not merely run parallel to the personal costs each successor experiences; they actively produce them.
The financial structure creates the emotional entanglement. The successor doesn’t inherit an enterprise in motion. They inherit a recapitalisation obligation dressed as an opportunity.
I HELP FAMILIES SEE BOTH DIMENSIONS OF THAT PARADOX CLEARLY.
Together, we address not only who will lead the business, but also:
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What the transition will cost the family
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Whether the structures in place are adequate to bear that cost
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If, and how, they can be changed for the better.
– TREVOR DICKINSON