Succession & Mittelstand
What matters in succession — beyond the price
Handing over a company is not just selling an asset. It is entrusting someone with what has grown over decades. The price does not settle that.
24 July 2026 · 4 min read
The name carries trust
A company name has been charged with reliability over years. Customers, suppliers and the region attach an expectation to it. Overwrite it overnight, and more is lost than a wordmark — the capital held within it is lost.
That is why the first question in a handover is not what the business costs, but what remains of what makes it what it is.
The team is not a line item
Those who have carried the business know it better than any due-diligence review. A handover that begins by cutting people destroys exactly the knowledge it meant to buy.
Continuity in the team is not a concession to the past, but the precondition for the future to work at all.
Respect for what was
Before anything is changed, it should be understood. What has grown over years usually has a reason — even where it looks outdated from the outside. Listen first, then decide.
A fair price matters. But it is the result of a good handover, not its purpose.
You can tell the worth of a business by how you treat the people who built it. Everything else is accounting.