Intentional Growth

Transferring the Family Business


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Have you ever heard about the statistics surrounding transferring a family business? There’s the daunting 30-13-3 rule, which means that 30 percent of companies successfully pass to the second generation of a family, 10 percent to the third, and 3 percent to the fourth. Today we’re going to talk about how family businesses have better longevity than other types of businesses

Our guests today are Carrie Hall, who leads the Ernst & Young Family Business Center, and James Bly, who had a family business consulting firm (Family Enterprise Business Services) that he sold to Ernst & Young. They have some insight to share on how you can raise your chances of success as you transfer your family business to the next generation

In this episode, you’ll learn:
  • The backgrounds of both Carrie and Jim and how they led them to Ernst & Young.
  • Some of the facts surrounding the transfer of family businesses to the second and third generations.
  • Some of the milestones that successful family businesses reach before and during transitions
  • The importance of transferring business vision and how families manage it through the generations with governance models.
  • How to address the financial reporting as the business grows and changes through the decades
  • How to analyze and identify the gaps between the different skill sets represented by subsequent generations, as well as tips on working around these gaps.
  • Some thoughts on structuring the actual transfers
  • Considerations for splitting the estate and the wages when skill sets are disparate and responsibilities are intertwined.
  • One of the key differences in terms of governance between businesses with successful generational transfers and those that do not succeed with transfers.
  • Why a framework for decision-making is vital.
  • Your business was hand-crafted and designed by you. You put your heart and soul (maybe even your blood, sweat and tears!) into building your empire — and now you’re starting to think about passing your business onto the next generation. Or are you? Well, according to our two podcast guests today — Carrie Hall and James Bly — who are well-versed in the area of family business and succession planning, you need to be doing this as early as possible if you want your business to survive the transition and become a multi-generational business.

    What’s the Reality of a Successful Business Transition?

    The ‘survival rate’ of a business transition is roughly 30% from the first generation to the second, 13% from the second to the third, and 3% from the third to the fourth. While this might seem dismal, and you’ve probably had it explained to you in a negative way, this is actually pretty striking. Multigenerational businesses are strong and have a higher survival rate than non-family businesses. Who knew?

    To put this into perspective, the average lifespan of a company today is 15 years compared with 50 years in 1920. So if you have a family business that has transitioned from your parents to yourself, you have already blown this statistic out of the water. If you want to challenge the Japanese (who have 20,000 businesses that are more than 100 years old!), you need to get started on your succession planning. In the US, the biggest piece of the upper middle-market corporate pie (80% of it, actually) is going to multigenerational businesses. So why don’t more busi

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    Intentional GrowthBy Arkona - Intentional Growth