Only seven percent of family businesses are ready for generational change

Are family businesses ready for generational transition? According to a CEPOR study, only 54 percent of entrepreneurs ‘talk little’ about transition within the family, while only seven percent of entrepreneurs have ‘put on paper’ a transition plan, meaning that only seven percent of family businesses are ready for generational transition.

Family businesses form the backbone of the Croatian economy, with estimates suggesting that more than half of all employees in Croatia work in them. However, despite their strength, the combination of ownership, management, and inheritance carries specific risks that are often insufficiently understood.

That is why Lider has been organizing the conference ‘The Future of Family Businesses‘ for 17 consecutive years, which remains a key meeting place for founders, successors, and experts shaping the future of family entrepreneurship.

In 2025, CEPOR conducted the Business Transfer Barometer study for the second time, after 10 years. Data collected from over 200 entrepreneurs aged 55 and older indicate that most of them talk little or not at all with their children about the future of the business after their retirement. In only seven percent of cases did entrepreneurs discuss this topic with their children and ‘put the family agreement on paper’.

Therefore, Mirela Alpeza, a full professor at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek and director of CEPOR, delivered a lecture at today’s conference highlighting the steps entrepreneurs can take to contribute to a successful transition of the family business, preservation of family capital, and good relationships among family members.

– At one of these conferences, we realized that all speakers were using data from other countries, and we saw that such a situation does not exist here, so in 2015 we conducted the first study on family businesses. The data is now outdated, so last year we released the results of a new study, Business Transfer Barometer Croatia – Alpeza explained.

Alpeza emphasized that every business owner in private ownership, at some point, if not earlier, when the owner needs to step back, asks what comes next. The transfer of business is a much broader topic than what the entrepreneur will do. This topic also concerns the perspective of the entrepreneur, and when there are no successors, it concerns others as well.

– From 2015 to 2025, over 3200 businesses disappeared. These are companies whose owners were over 55 years old in 2015 – said Alpeza.

According to CEPOR’s research among family businesses, in as many as 28 percent of cases, the first child works in the company, while 29 percent of other children work in the company. Additionally, only 24 percent of family businesses have a family member involved in both ownership and management.

Interestingly, entrepreneurs very rarely want to afford to have just one person replace a founder; rather, people want to run businesses in teams. Furthermore, 47 percent of entrepreneurs plan to retain ownership after retirement, while 19 percent plan to sell the company.

– Family is one thing, and family business is another. A clear stance of the family towards the family business should be documented, and one should be ready for the transfer of business to future generations while maintaining good relationships among family members – concluded Alpeza.

Before Mirela Alpeza’s lecture, the conference was opened by Lider’s editor-in-chief Miodrag Šajatović, who recalled that 17 years ago it was almost inappropriate to hold such a conference because all founders were in full strength.

– Today, we are glad that we have been alongside our partners and institutions that recognized the importance of family businesses. Previously, the challenge was to put the topic of inheritance on the agenda; after that, the challenge was the topic of selling the company, but today we see that all of this is not a defeat but a normal continuation of the business – said Šajatović.

Šajatović emphasized that family businesses are extremely important for the sovereignty of the state and the sovereignty of the community.

– Every family business that remains in the ownership of the second or third generation, or comes to acquisitions within Croatia, deserves social recognition that is still not sufficient – said Šajatović.