DIHK report: succession is about the how, not the whether

Recently we shared insights from the KfW succession barometer, focusing on the scale of the business successions ahead in the German Mittelstand. The DIHK Report on Business Succession 2025 now adds an important operational perspective from practitioners’ experience.

• Only 12% of companies cite economic reasons for handing over their business — the vast majority are fundamentally healthy.
• Every second company seeking succession is intended to be sold to an external buyer — family-internal solutions are no longer the default.
• Unclear or protracted succession processes lead to postponed investments on both sides — value is lost not only at closure, but already during the transition.

Taken together, this shows that the central challenge today is less the whether of succession, and much more the how.

This is precisely where Cornus comes in: as a long-term, structured home for companies in succession situations — with clear governance, robust financing, and the ambition not only to preserve solid Mittelstand businesses, but to actively develop them further.

Business succession is no longer a niche issue, but one of the defining structural challenges for the Mittelstand in the years ahead.

(Source: DIHK Report on Business Succession 2025)