sportFACHHANDEL 08_2018 Leseprobe

128 | COVERSTORY | Succession 8.2018
EMPLOYEES TO BE EXCLUDED
Which successor variant is preferred?
48% 48%
Family
succession
External
buyer
29%
Employee
18%
Co-owner
Despite a take-over by an employee being viewed as especially practical
in specialist sports retail, when there aren’t any family members, many
owners rather bet on external buyers. One reason for that could be that
financing a take-over by an employee is often difficult.
SOURCE: KFW-MITTELSTANDSPANEL 2017, MULTIPLE ANSWERS WERE POSSIBLE
terests and the future business management. From
the association group’s view it is important that the
company worth is dimensioned in a way that the
successor has a very good chance of earning the
made investment back, and attends to his financial
duties. The owner must also have enough leeway to
present necessary investments in the future, that
the market needs.” Therefore the company’s worth
can’t be determined without professional help.
Since the earnings forecast in single retail is low
either way, not comparable with craft businesses, or
the so-called liberal professions like doctors, solicitors
or architects. Tim Wahnel can also report on
those problems from personal experience: “If the
transfer within the family doesn’t work, finding the
pur chase price and financing are always a hurdle
when it comes to sale. On the one hand the former
owner is selling his life’s work, and has problems
finding a suitable sales price. On the other hand
there are often start-ups who require more support
especially in financing issues.”
Sport 2000 division manager
Partner/ Market, Michael
Fanck, points out that
there are also going to be
companies where there won’t
be a succession.
for the successor to lead the company. But the most
decisive aspect is the question of how much one’s
life’s work can be sold for sensibly. And above all:
What is worth how much? For example, how can
one evaluate the shop equipment, the customer
data and the so often titled “customer base worth”,
the introduced names, the warehouse, the own
concept, the future profit expectation, possible outstanding
payables, leases or employee contracts?
Objectively that isn’t possible.
Nevertheless there are various methods that banks
also use for orientation, for example:
During the earnings power procedure the company
worth is detected on base of future revenue overflow.
The earnings power is thereby the result of
common business activity from which the employer’s
salary as well as depreciations are subtracted.
When it comes to the Discounted Cash Flow
method (DFC method), the future cash flow,
namely the revenue and further costs, such as
depreciations, lease or interest, are used a basis for
the calculation.
An evaluation by market worth goes by highly
rated other, similar companies belonging to the
same industry.
These evaluation methods can strongly deviate
from each other. Whether any one of them truly
reflects the company worth often remains questionable.
Additionally, what can be a way too low price
to the seller, could already be the exclusion criteria.
This is how Michael Fanck puts the problem: ”The
purchase price/company worth is always a compromise
between the transferring generation’s in-
Therefore one of the decisive problems for
interested successors has already been mentioned.
Because once owner and successor have agreed
on a purchase price the question of financing has
often not yet been answered. One almost always
needs borrowed capital for a company take-over,
which also means that the interested successor’s
own fortunes are included as security or part of the
purchase price. Banks on the other hand depend
the financing on various factors, such as height of
self-participation and the personal wealth situation,
age, industry experience or apprenticeship. Additionally
there are the regional market development,
future prospects in general, and, of course, the
con tinuation or business plan in which these factors
are already taken into account. Once this hurdle
has been manged there is a variety of promotional
loans and programs that vary strongly from region
to region. The house banks can thereby fall back on
diverse, industry independent programs by the KfW.
Furthermore, many federal development banks offer
own promotional products in cooperation with the
KfW. Wolfram Schweickhardt, deputy press spokesman
for the KfW bank group, outlines the procedure:
“Thereby it is important for the KfW programs to
only be available via external financing partners,
usually the house bank. Granting promotional loans
is identical to the “normal” loans, meaning the bank
checks the applicant for creditworthiness etc., and
makes the decision whether or not to grant the loan.
The KfW then checks the incoming loan applications,
especially in terms of formal aspects (primarily,
whether the projects and the information given
in the loan application match the promotional
PHOTOS: ILYYAST + YEVHENII DUBINKO/ISTOCKPHOTO.COM, KFW-BILDARCHIV / RÜDIGER NEHMZOW, SPORT 2000, SFH