A professional succession plan consists of two transactions: In the first - and superficial - transaction, you sell a stream of future cash flows to a buyer at a valuation factor; in return, you receive an amount of money. In the second deal, you buy in: the partner who will manage your family business in the future and who will decide its future and that of your employees. Many entrepreneurs "forget" this part of succession planning. FORUM is your best partner if you are looking for a balanced package: the best possible "good home" for your family business and a fair purchase price.
Groups buy in order to integrate. In your case, the focus is on synergies.
After the takeover, central functions and processes of the group are transferred to your company, which means that decisions are made more slowly. After some time, it is completely unclear whether responsibility lies "above or below" and many good employees leave the company in frustration.
After a few years, your family business is then completely integrated into the group.
Family offices like FORUM buy companies to preserve and increase a family's wealth for the next generation. Most family offices do not sell at all. This gives your life's work a safe haven.
Family offices think long-term, so they invest to secure the future, i.e., employees, innovations and sustainability.
And they mostly operate on handshake quality - based on old merchant virtues.
Private equity funds are constructed as funds with a limited term and therefore have to turn over their investments every 3 - 5 years: They buy to sell more expensive - preferably with a lot of debt.
In this respect, your family business is prepared for sale from the moment of purchase: Cost reductions and renouncing invest with long payback are typical developments. The financiers become dominant in the corporate culture.
The family offices we are talking about here have a single family in the background - that is why they are also referred to as "single family offices". In addition, there are "non-genuine family offices", which are, for example,
a) asset managers who manage the assets of many clients or families. In these constellations, liquidation of the investment is almost always preprogrammed in a few years.
b) Private equity funds that have families as investors. They are private equity funds - with all the characteristics we have described above. Investment bankers - like the gentleman on the right - call the shots.