Bank van Breda’s Head of Advisory, Kristoph Wauters, believes that an important yet overlooked part of any deal preparation process is the owners’ feelings.
“In an M&A process, much attention is spent on financial, operational, and legislative considerations, but the emotional impact that comes with selling a business is underemphasised”, he shares.
Kristoph says that, for many Flemish and Belgian SMEs, selling their “baby” literally feels like giving away part of the family. And it hurts even more when dealmakers and competitors start pointing out all the things you are doing wrong to get a discount. “A lot of families wanted to pull out of deals after the due diligence process.”
It starts with onboarding an M&A boutique to connect sellers with the correct buyer. “Entering any new relationship can be a very emotional endeavour”, Kristoph relates… “Especially when you work with a leader or process you are not familiar with.”
A good example is the renegotiation of the price after due diligence is done. “It’s up to advisors to calm clients down and remind them that it is normal”, Kristoph explains. “We have been trained to keep our emotions under control.”
Sometimes, sellers are blindsided by buyers and have to go through all these feelings in a much shorter span of time. “A financial party with a buy-and-build strategy might reach out to several interesting targets”, Kristoph shares an example. “In these cases, owners are not prepared and often confronted with whether they want to sell for the first time.”
Determining an owner’s deal-readiness
Kristoph emphasises that, in any circumstance, the business is only really ready for a transaction when the owner is. “In the past, owners sold their businesses at the age of 65. Currently, it’s between ages 55 and 60, and new trends indicate it is becoming even lower, around ages 50-55.”
He observes that someone ready to sell will lose energy for certain key topics in their business and engage with employees less as the generational and digital gaps widen. This is when Bank van Breda comes in.
Part of what makes letting go so difficult is how much of themselves owners have poured into their companies. Most are not just owners; they are CEOs, commercial people, and technically skilled. "They wear many different caps", Kristoph notes, "and selling means laying most of those down."
For someone who has made decisions intuitively for decades, answering to a new structure or watching someone else steer can be very disorienting. “To prepare them for this transition, Bank van Breda begins its work long before a deal is even on the table, sometimes as far as seven years in advance”, Kristoph explains.
Their pre-sale evaluations focus on helping owners understand what needs to change operationally, structurally, and financially before going to market. “Very often, this means untangling personal and professional interests that, in many Belgian family businesses, are rarely fully separate.”
Beyond balance sheets and price points
While strategic buyers pursue vertical or horizontal integration opportunities and financial buyers seek successful standalone companies, family businesses care about shared values. “They want to know what will happen to their people, because they are generally related or considered members of the family”, Kristoph highlights. In these cases, the deal doesn’t go to the highest bidder, but to the buyer who shows the best intentions.
“Trust between buyers and sellers has always been important – even if there are holes in the technical elements. As long as you are honest and transparent about it, you can address it calmly”, he adds.
Alignment of family values matters too, even when the buyer is a big company. Kristoph clarifies that a full match is neither possible nor necessary, but a significant gap in values almost always leads to talent loss. "Employees of a family business feel that dissonance quickly", he says, "and they leave."
What heirs actually inherit
One of the more striking shifts Kristoph has observed in recent years is how families think about what they are passing down. Increasingly, owners are recognising that it’s not the business itself that needs to be handed to the next generation, but the entrepreneurial spirit. “In the past, the eldest child would inherit the family business”, he points out. “But you can’t expect someone who is in love with IT to run a fish shop.”
Today, selling the company has become a vehicle for releasing capital that children can invest in their own ventures. “Younger entrepreneurs want technology and software-as-a-service (SaaS) businesses”, Kristoph indicates. He also sees a growing appetite for businesses built around culture, heritage, sustainability, and other niche markets.
The next generation is also searching for mentorship or boards of advice. They have less of an 'I can do everything' mindset, and more of a 'let me get the right people involved’ one. “They tend to be more deliberate about work-life balance and more structured in how they organise their time”, Kristoph explains.
This means advisors like Bank van Breda are brought in much sooner. “We know that technical solutions only land well when the emotional groundwork has been laid first”, Kristoph reiterates.
He explains that the goal is never just to close the deal only; it is to ensure the family and the legacy they have spent their lifetime building has a considered and dignified next chapter.
