Immigrants Could Be Answer for Family Businesses With No Succession Plan
The Fredericton Chamber of Commerce has recently launched a program to help New Brunswick’s retiring business owners find successors for their businesses, while at the same time helping newcomers become entrepreneurs here themselves.
Succession Connect was developed to address two major challenges facing New Brunswick. One is the need for population growth, the second the high numbers of aging business owners expected to be exiting their businesses at higher rates than in the past.
Janet Moser, director of Intercultural Business Services for the Fredericton Chamber, says she got the idea for the program through a situation her own family was going through.
“I was thinking about how we could increase our uptake in terms of retention into New Brunswick and what that meant, looking at the lens of the aging demographic and looking at the statistics,” says Moser. “At the same time, I was sort of going through the same issue with my own family business.
My father had run a business in the city for over 45 years and he had passed away. My two young siblings took it over and they were entering their retirement years and they just didn’t know what they were going to do with that business. The choices are limited.
“I started putting the pieces together and it just made sense that we try to put together a program where we are working with aging business owners or business owners who are looking to get out from underneath the business, and we have wealthy immigrant investors coming into the province through the provincial nominee program and potentially there could be some really great matches there.”
First of its kind program
Moser says Succession Connect is a first of-its-kind program in Canada to support connecting immigrant owners with businesses for sale in New Brunswick. The program is supported by the Chamber, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Province of New Brunswick, and the City of Fredericton. Succession Connect’s role is not to be brokers or agents, but to be a free program to support the introductions of immigrant investment clients with business owners looking to sell.
“The idea is the Chamber of Commerce through the program are sourcing local and provincial businesses that are currently on the market …[for] immigrants coming to New Brunswick who are under the contract of the provincial nominee program with the province through immigration,” says Moser.
“We’re certainly going to be working alongside those folks to support their efforts in trying to assist their clients and their succession plans.”
Through their partners McInnis Cooper, Scotiabank and Grant Thornton, Succession Connect will offer coaching and classroom training for both the newcomers and the business sellers. Topics covered will include on what it is to do business in Canada, all of the authorities, building regulations, permits, inspections and taxation.
“We’re really supporting our newcomers with all the information that they will need to understand what it means to buy a business, and we encourage the sellers who register with us to understand that there is that learning process. So we’re encouraging strongly that the seller stays with the newcomer buyer for a period of time,” says Moser.
Our objective is to make the connections based on the newcomers interests, their educational background, their expertise and then going into our database and locating businesses that would potentially match their want or need.”
The Fredericton Chamber is hosting an information session Sept. 6 for newcomers, business owners and the lawyers, brokers, accountants and other business professionals that work with them. The goal is to start making introductions and connections this year.
Since the Succession Connect started taking shape a year ago, it’s received some national attention. The Conference Board of Canada has recommended that the Succession Connect program be considered by the federal immigration department to be recommended to all provinces and all major centres.
Though the recognition is great, Moser says the program’s organizers are focused on producing good results. The good news is, interest in high.
“The proof is in the pudding. It’s great to get all the accolades and the awards and the recognition,” she says. “But now we are going into our second year and our second year is our matching year, so we’re already very encouraged by the amount the interest we’ve had from the sellers’ side, and of course the newcomers are very happy to know that there are opportunities that they’re not aware of because they are not on the market.”