Retirement plans among owners of small and medium-sized companies in Germany have recently picked up speed, as the new SME Succession Monitor shows: around 125,000 medium-sized companies are expected to be handed over as part of a succession – and that every year until the end of 2027 on average. The continued strong desire for a succession solution within the family is offset by dwindling interest from potential succession candidates. Overall, there are only around half as many takeover start-ups as succession planners in the SME sector each year. The growing bottleneck is increasing the demands on the senior generation. It is therefore very pleasing that the planning status of current owners has recently been better than ever before. The number of successions that are already in place has reached an all-time high. Successors have already been found for almost three out of four of the handovers planned in the short term by the end of 2024.

Status report on SME succession 2023: Despite successor shortage, three quarters of successions will be sorted by the end of 2024(PDF, 236 KB, accessible)

Press release