Governance · Succession and exit · Component
Ownership transition plan
How ownership passes to its next holders — family, managers, employees or a buyer — with the timing, valuation and financing that shape it.
The deliverable
What it is
In family firms the transfer of ownership to the next generation is a much-studied point of difficulty. Gersick and colleagues describe it as a change in the whole system — from a controlling owner to a sibling partnership, and later to a cousin consortium — with each stage needing different governance.
The same questions arise outside families. A founder selling to the management team, or placing the business in an employee ownership trust, has to settle who will own it, when, at what value and how it will be paid for, and those answers take years to prepare.
One level in
What it is made of
Each element is a constituent part of the component. Follow one to see the attributes it carries.
Next owners
Who is expected to hold the ownership next, in what proportions, and whether they have said they want it.
3 attributes: Next owner · Intended share · Confirmed
LearnTransfer timetable
When shares or control are to pass, in which steps, and what has to be in place before each step is taken.
2 attributes: Step date · Precondition
LearnValuation and financing
How the shares will be valued, how the next owners will pay for them, and the tax treatment of the transfer.
3 attributes: Valuation · Valuation basis · Financing
LearnFamily agreements
In family firms, how members outside the business are treated, and how the family takes decisions as owners.
3 attributes: Principle · Given effect in · Agreed
Learn
Ask the intended next owners whether they want it. Transitions are regularly designed around someone who would rather sell.
The other components in succession and exit
Leadership succession plan
Named emergency and longer-term successors for the chief executive, the chair and other roles the board holds itself responsible for.
LearnExit options review
The routes by which the owners could leave, what each would require, and what is being done to keep the preferred ones open.
Learn