Company successions: joining an existing company

It is a challenge for business founders to find a successful owner-managed company that is looking for a successor. Find the right support.

A successor solution for your own company is primarily about putting your own (life’s) project in suitable hands.

Anyone looking for a successful company is looking for a trustworthy owner.

Here it is important to bring both sides together and to find a perfect solution for both.

Careful planning is required for this to succeed. A succession plan is not to be made in a few weeks – and certainly not to be carried out in the same timeframe.

Individual advice for your solution

The facilities of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for business founders will help you with the concrete planning: the right advice on this for you can be obtained from the local responsible Startercenter NRW as well as from the responsible Chambers of Industry and Commerce (information in German only), the Chambers of Crafts (information in German only) and the municipal business development institutions (information in German only).

You can find support for suitable financing at the Kapitalbeteiligungsgesellschaft NRW (KBG NRW) (information in German only). Together with KBG NRW, the state’s Chambers of Crafts have launched the Sonderprogramm Handwerk (information in German only). This specifically takes care of business successions and takeovers in the craft sector. One year after the acquisition of the stake, a free check-up is carried out by the consultants of the Chamber of Crafts.

In addition, the KBG NRW has introduced, together with the Chambers of Industry and Commerce, the Sonderprogramm IHK-Unternehmen (information in German only) specially for company successions.

The portal nexxt-change.org (information in German only) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) can also assist in finding a successor outside NRW. In addition, nachfolge-in-deutschland.de (information in German only) offers a large amount of information on its website – free of charge and funded by the BMWK.

Whatever the specific solution in your case, the institutions in North Rhine-Westphalia and the Federal Government will help you.