InsightsSuccession

The Succession Wave: 600,000 European Companies Seeking Successors

February 2026Julien Bernard5 min read

Demography is the quietest force in M&A, and currently the strongest. Across Europe, an estimated six hundred thousand companies will need a successor within this decade because their owners are reaching an age at which continuing is no longer a plan. In Germany alone, tens of thousands of owner-led companies face the question every year. This is no longer a family matter; it is a market condition.

What a wave does to prices

When many comparable companies seek buyers within the same window, buyers gain the one thing they can never buy: alternatives. The companies that transact well against that backdrop are not necessarily the largest or the most profitable — they are the ones that arrive first, prepared, while their peer group is still deciding.

There is a second-order effect owners underestimate: acquirers and investors are building dedicated succession-focused strategies, with capital and playbooks designed precisely for this wave. For prepared sellers, this is a new and motivated buyer class. For unprepared ones, it is a professional counterparty meeting an amateur seller.

The three questions that decide readiness

• Can the company run without you for ninety days? If not, the transaction being priced is not the company — it is your continued employment.
• Do all shareholders want the same outcome? Alignment inside the family or partner group is worth more than any negotiation tactic outside it.
• Is the structure decided before the buyer arrives? Family transfer, MBO, sale, foundation — choosing under deadline pressure converts options into concessions.

Time is the asset

Every succession we have seen fail, failed for the same reason: it started too late. Every one that created a durable legacy had years — not months — of quiet preparation behind it. The wave is coming regardless. Owners choose only which side of it they meet.