Who can take over my company?
According to the Magdeburg CCI, by 2020 just under 900 entrepreneurs and partners will have reached retirement age in their sector alone. The CCI estimates a need for company successors in this period rising up to 264 per year. "Consequently, the professionals who contact the CCI with a start-up idea are sensitised by us to possibly contemplate taking over an existing company", explains Horn, pointing out the motivation of start-up founders, to whom this idea may well not even have occurred. "In this regard, the company owners, of their own accord, become active too late", and added that there are good reasons for that approach: "Alongside the fear of relinquishing their life's work, many owners worry about a competitive disadvantage in the fiercely contested market caused by an official announcement of thinking about handing over their company. For the purpose of alleviating such fears, our Company Succession Network founded in 2007 assumes the task of an anonymous partner placement exchange – both on the ground and on the internet. The nationwide "nexxt-change" succession exchange is supported and advised by the chambers in Saxony-Anhalt." (www.nexxt-change.org).
"The acquisition biographies within a family have fundamentally changed since the reunification of Germany", Sven Horn states, looking back to a period when it was still an unwritten law (for structural reasons primarily in West Germany) that the son or daughter would join the family business. Today these children choose the path best suited to their own life planning in a completely self-confident manner." And: nowadays attractive job vacancies with less risk associated to them are available to an ever decreasing number of skilled workers.
"In Saxony-Anhalt, the succession problem was apparent in the middle of the previous century. "The bosses of small and medium-sized companies, in particular, have neither time nor manpower to take care of the succession", stated Horn, adding that in Saxony-Anhalt a pilot project funded by the EU and the State itself existed up to 2006 for "companies with take-over perspectives". The companies were accompanied in their process to order and regulate their internal structures in such a way as to make then attractive for potential successors.
Following the phase-out of this funded project, the chambers of crafts and the chambers of commerce and industry were in no mind to allow this successful approach of finding successors to be wasted. As the next steps on this chosen path, they adopted further measures, including the "Saxony-Anhalt Successor Club", which was funded by the State Government for two years.
"Although regrettable, we must face up to the fact that there is no sustainable solution to the successor problem, because it always recurs under the special demographic conditions", stated Horn.
The search for entrepreneurial successors is now supported by the "Saxony-Anhalt Company Succession Network". In 2009, the four State Chambers agreed to cooperate for this purpose. Experts on the specific details of the advice involved are incorporated into the network: i.e. institutions active in the area of start-ups, tax advisors, lawyers, the Investment Bank, the Guarantee Bank.
"It is our intention to gain business banks for our network. The reason for this is that if the company owner has not regulated the issue of his successor by the time he reaches a specific age, there are negative consequences for his credit worthiness", stated Horn, drawing attention to a key aspect of the search for a successor.
Nevertheless, the boss should not wait until he reaches a specific age in this regard, if the preservation of the company, jobs and customers is important to him. "Accident, illness, death – there are any number of reasons for a company to close down overnight, which can be avoided by prudent foresight", stated Horn, calling on companies to make use of the advisory network.
As representative of the CCI network partner, Sven Horn will also be looking out for potential "successors" at the "Hierbleiben-Messe" (Remain Here Trade Fair) on 22nd November in the Magdeburg Kulturwerk Fichte (Cultural Organisation). He is well aware: "They can be interested in quite different phases of life. If on the one hand life and career experience has grown, while on the other hand the obligations to children have decreased, then some find the road to independence." At the current time he observes the trend of companies wanting to strategically expand and acquiring other companies for this purpose.
"In any case", he emphasises, "the decision on founding or acquiring a company here in Saxony-Anhalt is also a decision of the heart for the region, for this state."
Caption: The well prepared management transfer at the öko-control GmbH company in Schönebeck The Managing Directors Sigurd Kliese, Wolf-Michael Feldbach and Hans Jürgen Stark (from right to left) taking this path together with their successor Thomas Friedrich with the assistance of the "Saxony-Anhalt Company Succession Network". Their closest advisor is ego pilot Dirk Schaffranke (on the left), a network partner.
Author: Kathrain Graubaum (text/photo)
Contact:
Sven Horn
IHK-Geschäftsbereich Industrie, Umwelt, Konjunktur
Alter Markt 8
39104 Magdeburg
ph: +49 391 5693150
E-Mail: horn.ignore@magdeburg.ihk.de
Web: www.magdeburg.ihk.de