Continuity
Succession & Governance
Most family businesses are not lost for lack of business. They are lost for lack of written rules when the next generation arrives.
Contact us: geral@intuitionconsulting.net
How do you prepare a family business succession?
By separating three things that usually get mixed: ownership of the shares, management of the company and family relationships. In practice you write a family protocol setting entry, role and exit rules, sign a shareholders' agreement covering voting, share transfers and deadlock resolution, and design the share transmission with tax and inheritance rules in mind. In Portugal transfers between parents and children are generally stamp-duty exempt, but the control structure must be designed separately.
Who this is for
- Founders planning to step back within five to ten years
- Families with children inside and outside the business
- Companies with disagreeing shareholders and no tie-break mechanism
- Groups where ownership and management were never separated
Signs you need this
- There is no shareholders' agreement, or one signed twenty years ago
- Nothing defines what happens if a shareholder exits or dies
- Children working in the business and those outside are treated identically
- Decisions depend on one person and nobody is being prepared
- A family conflict was resolved by silence
What we deliver
Family protocol
Written rules on entry, roles, pay, exit and the family-management relationship.
Shareholders' agreement
Voting, pre-emption, transfers, drag-along and tag-along provisions.
Next-generation entry models
Gradual transfer, performance linkage, usufruct and founder control retention.
Deadlock mechanisms
How to decide without agreement, without courts and without paralysing the company.
How we work
Individual conversations
We speak to each party separately. What is said together is rarely everything.
Model design
Ownership structure, bodies, decision rules and transition calendar.
Family validation
A joint session to align expectations before anything is signed.
Formalisation
Documents drafted with lawyers and the transfers executed.
What changes at the end
Frequently Asked Questions