How to deal with generational change in your company
Attorney Simon De Zordo plans and manages the transfer of businesses and provides companies with assistance throughout the process, with the aim of defending family-owned businesses and helping the multiple generations within them to exist and grow together.
The strategy for involving new generations in the business plan
How to protect the future of the company: generational transition or succession outside the family.
Are you a business owner and want to hand your company over to your family members or partners, or are you one of the children interested in taking over the running of the family business?
Sooner or later business owners have to face the delicate issue of passing on their businesses. In order to preserve the value of a company and encourage its development potential, it is necessary to plan and prepare the necessary steps at an early stage, for instance by including specific succession clauses in company by-laws.
An analysis of the context of the business and family relationships involved makes it possible to decide, first of all, whether to entrust the management of the business to one or more family members or whether the preservation of the competitiveness of the business requires entrusting them with its supervision and allocating them part of the profits of the operational activities managed by others.
The first phase of the consultation consists of the following steps:
- analysis of the formal, organisational and financial structure of the company;
- examination of the demands, abilities and claims of family members;
- definition of priorities and development goals of the family members and the company;
- prior and ongoing mediation to prevent and resolve possible conflicts among all the parties involved.
How can you plan and implement the transfer of a business?
The analysis of the client's needs is followed by the preparatory phase:
- identification of the appropriate legal instruments to achieve the agreed objectives;
- study of ways and degrees of involvement of groups of shareholders, personnel, consultants, customers and key suppliers, as well as strategic investors;
- presentation of proposals for changes to the company's structure and management and control model;
- drawing up of the company's succession plan with interim objectives;
- verification of the results and regular review of the plan.
At an operational level, the development objectives of the company defined together with the client will be pursued by innovatively combining traditional and next generation instruments, e.g. with the following institutions: donations, succession clauses in company by-laws, shareholdings with special rights, trust and fiduciary transactions, family agreements, structuring of groups of companies, family holding companies, family offices, foundations, demergers, transformations, testamentary dispositions and related contracts, as well as foreign law institutions.
To protect the company's competitiveness in the long term and to operate under conditions of certainty and stability means entrusting the planning of generational change to the expert as early as possible.
Why choose Attorney Simon De Zordo
For INTERDISCIPLINARY and CREATIVE advice
Finding a balanced and lasting solution that benefits the company during the delicate transition phase is the goal. We consider and closely analyse all aspects, involving experienced consultants where necessary, using a combination of a wide range of legal methods and instruments at our disposal.
For assistance with LONG-TERM RESULTS
With swift, distinct and decisive intervention, we support businesses, enabling them to grow sustainably in the long term, to avoid disputes and to establish clear rules in relations between different generations and with partners and employees.
For a TRANSPARENT and TRILINGUAL approach
Against the background of conflicts there is frequently a misunderstanding of the cultural dimension of a problem. We provide clear, transparent and effective communication to businesses, with assistance in German, Italian and English.