Business Transfers, Family Firms and Entrepreneurship

Relevance of Business Transfers as a Fundamental Pillar of Resilient Economies and Outline of Current Development Based on a Recent Survey

“…While there is no consensus about the meaning or definition of business transfers, they are generally defined as the transfer of ownership of a company to another person or legal entity of more than 50% of the assets or shares, while at the same time "assuring the continued existence and commercial activity of the [company]" (Alpeza et al, 2018). This definition was first introduced by Van Teeffelen in 2010 and has enjoyed great support since (e.g., Deschamps et al, 2020;Alpeza et al, 2018). Transfer models were first introduced in the late 1970s, e.g., by Longecker and Schoen in 1978 which, while providing a seven-step process for business transfers, failed to include "any reference to post-succession issues" (Meijaard et al, 2005), an issue that has been repeatedly criticised within other business transfer models as well (Meijaard et al, 2005).…”

“…The European Commission started paying attention to business transfers in 1994 and has been issuing recommendations and guidelines both for its member states' governments and small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), in general ever since (Alpeza et al, 2018;Bastié et al, 2018;Deschamps et al, 2020). Particularly in the face of a failure rate of just over 30%, it is vital for national governments to provide the best possible support for business transfers in the best possible economic and political environment (European Commission, 2013in Deschamps et al, 2020.…”

“…Moreover, the importance of business transfers is expected to increase over the next decade or so, due to the ageing populations of most European countries (Battisti & Williamson, 2015;Deschamps et al, 2020;Ryan & Power, 2012;Viljamaa et al, 2015b). Business transfers are particularly important for SMEs as they make up the vast majority of firms across Europe with nearly 98.7% of all firms being "classified as small firm" (Ryan & Power, 2012).…”

“…90 million people) and are responsible for nearly €4 trillion in added value (Alpeza et al, 2018). According to the European Commission (2013( , in Deschamps et al, 2020, each year more than 450,000 SMEs and over two million jobs are affected by business transfers. This is particularly concerning, as one third of these business transfers fail due to a variety of reasons, often related to a lack of resources, and are thus endangering up to 150,000 businesses and threatening the loss of 600,000 jobs (Alpeza et al, 2018;Deschamps et al, 2020).…”

“…According to the European Commission (2013( , in Deschamps et al, 2020, each year more than 450,000 SMEs and over two million jobs are affected by business transfers. This is particularly concerning, as one third of these business transfers fail due to a variety of reasons, often related to a lack of resources, and are thus endangering up to 150,000 businesses and threatening the loss of 600,000 jobs (Alpeza et al, 2018;Deschamps et al, 2020). Business transfers, especially transfers of SMEs, are therefore not only of great importance for the individual businesses transferred, but also for the overall economic stability of the European economy (Viljamaa et al, 2015a).…”