Supporting family businesses in the challenge of generational transition

The image that accompanies the News on the challenges of generational change in family businesses portrays two smiling men, one older and one younger, in an open, green space: the young man affectionately embraces the older man, who has white hair and beard, squeezing his shoulders in his arms

Intesa Sanpaolo assists and supports family businesses in generational transition – one of the most critical and complex phases for Italian family businesses, with a potential impact on the family and lenders, even putting the very survival of the business at risk: just 50% of SMEs make it to the second generation and just 10% to the third¹.

This is also relevant in the light of the challenges posed by digital transformation and environmental transition, which require flexibility and multidisciplinarity from the new generations.

To assist companies in adopting the right strategies to preserve business continuity, Intesa Sanpaolo offers more than just credit:

specialist support
dedicated training processes
advanced corporate finance consulting, e.g. for tax and financial planning and extraordinary transactions
collaboration with the ELITE programme, the Euronext ecosystem that helps SMEs and innovative young businesses to grow and enjoy access to private and public capital markets

The topic was the subject of a conference organised by Intesa Sanpaolo.

The generational support is of strategic importance for the preservation and future of Italy's industrial heritage:

in Italy every year 60,000 entrepreneurs experience a generational transition²
12% of companies have their entire board composed of directors over65³, and more than half of Italian family entrepreneurs are over 60⁴
in Italy, 85% of companies are family businesses, where the CEO is from the family, while 66% still have family management (vs. 26% in France and 10% in the UK)⁵

The inclusion of new managers and young people in the board brings considerable benefits:

the advent of external managers yields greater returns in terms of competitiveness
new generations on the board bring greater innovation and green focus, with a significant contribution to entering new sectors
companies with at least one director under 40 recorded a median turnover growth of 11.6% in the period 2019-2021, compared to 6.5% for companies with an entire board over 65 and 8.8% for the rest of thecompanies⁶.

The right strategies thus must be adopted in good time so that the generational transition does not have a negative impact and becomes an opportunity to transfer not only responsibility and control, but also know-how and values.

Notes:

1 - Source: CERIF. Family Company Research Centre
2 - Source: ISTAT, Permanent Business Census, 2018
3 - Note: In Lombardy, the incidence is 12.5%. Source: Intesa Sanpaolo elaborations on ISID and Cerved data
4 - Source: Srm on Asam
5 - Sources: Cerif-Family Business Research Centre of Università Cattolica di Milano and AIDAF - Italian Association of Family Businesses
6 - Source: Intesa Sanpaolo, periodic survey of corporate branches, June 2017

Last updated 28 April 2023 at 16:26:49