07. What should happen to the business?

As an asset, the business creates value, dividends and a potential sale price. As a system, it depends on people, signatures, payroll, banks, contracts, clients, data and daily decisions. A share valuation answers only the first group of questions.

The succession review therefore begins with a 30-day founder-absence test. Who signs an urgent contract, instructs the accountant, ensures payroll, responds to a key client and obtains the information needed for a responsible decision? If the answer to every question remains one person, the system is vulnerable regardless of the business's value.

• critical actions during the first 24 hours;
• decisions required within 30 days;
• replacement or preparation of a role over a 12-month horizon;
• practical knowledge held only by the founder;
• the bank, provider or BV corporate body that must recognise the action.

Economic value determines who receives the benefit. Voting rights determine who exercises shareholder powers and decides reserved matters. Management determines who runs the company and represents it externally. One child may be the appropriate manager without that answering how value should be shared across the family.

The founder's role during the transition should also be described separately: operator, joint decision-maker, mentor, strategic leader or investor. Progressive support can transfer responsibility as readiness develops, but each stage needs a defined role and boundary.

Key point

Naming a successor is not enough: the successor's economic, corporate and operational position must be defined.

A successor's readiness depends on experience, authority, the team's confidence and a genuine knowledge-transfer plan. For children outside the business, the economic outcome, liquidity, timing and risk of an illiquid interest matter. Equal nominal value may leave one child carrying the management burden while another has no accessible cash.

Equalisation requires both valuation and funding. The family should not promise that ‘one child will receive the business and the others will receive cash’ until the value, funding source, payment date and stress scenario for a delayed transition have been defined.

Three events—unavailability, incapacity and death—are mapped against three horizons: 24 hours, 30 days and 12 months. For each cell, record the action, primary actor, alternate, authority source, evidence, institution, limitation and owner of the next step.

A director, shareholder, bank signatory, attorney and estate executor are not interchangeable. Even if their functions are currently concentrated in one director-major shareholder (DGA), the continuity plan must show the lawful transition of each role.

The articles of association, shareholders' agreement, BV corporate resolutions, shareholder register, bank mandates, will, levenstestament, insurance and any STAK/certification pack should be reviewed as one implementation stack. A change to one element may require updates to others.

BOR and DSR are specialist gates, not promised outcomes. Review the active-business conditions, ownership history, continuation, value and the specific transaction under the rules current at implementation. First design a workable transition; then confirm the tax treatment.