A business sale often brings the question of succession forward by a generation. The money can be transferred quickly. The responsibility cannot.
Two transfers, not one
When a founder sells, the wealth that was once embedded in a company becomes financial, and thus, divisible and movable. It can be gifted, settled into structures or shared among children, in a matter of months. That speed is a temptation. Families frequently find themselves arranging the transfer of wealth before they have thought about the transfer of responsibility – who will decide, who will be consulted, who will be accountable, and whether the people receiving the wealth are prepared to hold it.
These are different projects. The first is largely legal and tax-driven. The second is about people, and their roles and expectations. Doing the first without the second is how families end up with efficient structures and unresolved disagreements.
What the research shows
The UBS Global Family Office Report 2025 found that only 53% of the family offices surveyed had a wealth-succession plan. Among those that did, 64% identified achieving a tax-efficient transfer as a major challenge, and 43% identified preparing the next generation to take on wealth responsibly as their biggest issue. Only 26% had consulted the next generation from the outset.
Read together, these figures describe a common pattern: the technical transfer absorbs most of the attention, the human transfer is acknowledged as hard, and the people who will inherit are brought in last.
What needs to be decided
In our experience the following questions should be answered, in writing, before any transfer is executed.
- Ownership. Who will own what, in what proportions, and through what vehicles? Will ownership be equal among children, or weighted by involvement? Will some assets be held in common rather than divided?
- Control. Ownership and control can be separated, and often should be. Who will have voting rights, and who will have economic rights? Will the founder retain control for a period, and if so, until what event?
- Decision-making. How will the family take decisions about investments, distributions, new ventures and philanthropy? By whom, by what majority, with what advice? What happens when the family cannot agree?
- Family expectations. What does each family member expect of the wealth, of their role, of one another? Unspoken expectations surface at the worst moments. Spoken ones can be reconciled in advance.
- Liquidity. What will the family need in cash over the coming years – including the tax arising from the sale and from the transfer itself – and how will that be provided without forcing the sale of assets at the wrong time?
- The role of the next generation. Will heirs be owners only, or will they take part in decisions? What preparation do they need, and when does it begin? The UBS finding that only a quarter of families consult the next generation from the outset and suggests that most begin too late.
- Coordination among advisers. Investment, legal and tax advisers each see a part of the plan. A transfer that is efficient for tax but creates an unmanageable investment structure, or a governance arrangement that the lawyer has not been asked to document, is a plan with a gap in it.
Sequence
The order matters. Decisions about people and responsibility should come first; they inform what the structures need to do. Structures come second; they are built to deliver the decisions. The transfer of assets comes last, and by then it is a formality rather than a leap.
How Otoma Group helps
We assist families and entrepreneurs with the design of governance that lasts and with the careful preparation for the passing of wealth between generations. We provide a setting for dialogue between generations, and we work with our clients' legal and tax advisers so that the eventual transfer sits within a plan the whole family understands. If a recent or forthcoming sale has brought these questions to the surface for your family, we would be glad to help you take them in the right order.