NORDWEST INSIDE, the member magazine of NORDWEST Handel AG, devotes three pages to an interview with our partner Dr. Lars Junc. The subject is a question many owners keep postponing: when is the right moment for succession, and how much preparation does that step actually require?
The headline is also the core message: “Buyers buy the future, not the past.” In practice, Lars Junc often sees the opposite of what would be sensible. Owners tend to get in touch only once the business has started to weaken and the outlook is poorer than the year before. What should have been prepared over years is then supposed to be settled in months. Buyers, however, are only so impressed by past success. What matters is what lies ahead.
The owner’s view and the market’s view are often worlds apart. The owner sees what has been built over decades: customer relationships, employees, frequently a life’s work. The market asks about the future: which earnings are realistic, and how reliably the business will develop over the coming years.
A second focus of the conversation is dependence on the owner. In the German Mittelstand a great deal of knowledge sits with one person, from pricing to processes to supplier and customer relationships built over many years. For buyers this becomes a risk if that knowledge is not passed on in good time. Anyone planning to hand over should therefore make sure early on that the company works without them: with clear processes, documented workflows and a management level that carries the business on its own.
Lars Junc also comments on communication. As long as it is still open whether a handover will happen at all, the circle of people in the know should stay small. Otherwise rumours and uncertainty spread. By signing at the latest, a clearly planned communication towards the workforce is essential.
Finally, the article addresses a widespread concern: talking to an adviser about succession does not in itself start a sale process. “You don’t have to use the word sale at all,” says Lars Junc. A first conversation can instead be the occasion to review your own company once a year: where does the business stand, how can its value be assessed, what would need to be prepared? Sometimes ten years pass between the first meeting and the actual sale. A long period, but often exactly the right one.
Zerbach & Company has been the exclusive cooperation partner of NORDWEST Handel AG for business succession since 2017. Issue 02/2026 devotes two articles to the topic: alongside the interview, NORDWEST presents its own succession services on pages 16 and 17, from a first orientation through an indicative company valuation to its new emergency file. Both articles are available here as a PDF.
