One of the most revealing findings in the 2026 University of St. Gallen and UBS Swiss succession study is not simply the size of the discounts founders accept. It is the pattern behind them.
Founders appear to grant the largest discounts and the most favourable financing terms to the successors they know best. The source material cites indicative discounts of around 42% for family members, 26% for management teams and 22–30% for trusted external successors.
In other words, the successor most likely to preserve continuity often receives the greatest economic support.
A purely financial seller would normally be expected to maximize price, certainty of payment and speed of execution. Many founders appear to optimize for a broader set of outcomes.
Those outcomes can include continuity of the business, preservation of jobs, maintenance of independence, trust in the successor and the long-term survival of what they built.
Against that wider objective function, accepting a lower price or providing seller financing is not necessarily irrational. It may be the deliberate use of accumulated value to influence the company’s future ownership and improve the probability of continuity.
This distinction matters in succession planning. Advisers who assume that price is the sole objective may design a technically efficient transaction that fails the founder’s real priorities. Those priorities should be surfaced early, made explicit and reflected in the valuation, buyer selection, financing and governance architecture.
The underlying choice is often not simply between a higher and a lower offer. It is between maximizing value extraction at the moment of sale and shaping how value is transmitted into the next chapter of the enterprise.