UBS is drawing attention to the financial advisor’s role as a facilitator when disagreements over family business succession threaten both personal relationships and enterprise continuity. The bank’s specialists say advisors cannot rely on a standardized formula when founders, heirs and other stakeholders disagree about whether a business should be transferred, sold or retained under the control of the current generation. Instead, advisors may need to combine technical planning with collaboration, communication and carefully managed discussions about authority, competence and legacy.

Greg Merrill, a private wealth advisor at UBS, said during a media roundtable on generational transition that succession disputes do not come with a perfect playbook. One common conflict involves a younger family member who wants to assume leadership while the founder remains reluctant to surrender control or pursue a sale. Those disagreements can become more complicated when different members of the same family are served by separate advisors within one financial institution, creating additional coordination and conflict-management challenges.

Merrill’s central recommendation was to embrace collaboration. That may involve working with professionals who specialize in conflict resolution, family governance or facilitated dialogue rather than expecting investment advisors to resolve emotionally charged disagreements by themselves. The advisor’s role is not necessarily to select the next chief executive or determine which family member is correct. It is to organize a process in which the relevant parties can understand their options, articulate their concerns and consider the financial and personal consequences of different decisions.

Dave Leibell, an advanced planning specialist at UBS, said the firm’s family advisory team works with stakeholders on the less technical side of succession. Legal documents, trusts, tax structures and ownership agreements remain essential, but they may not solve a dispute rooted in identity, recognition or mistrust. A founder may view continued control as protection of a lifetime’s work, while a child may interpret the same position as a lack of confidence. Unless those underlying perceptions are addressed, technically sound planning can remain unsigned, unsupported or vulnerable to later challenge.

UBS’s approach places particular emphasis on creating a safe setting for conversations that family members may have postponed. Merrill described this as one of the advisor’s most important responsibilities, especially when the advisor already has a trusted relationship with multiple generations. A structured meeting can move discussions away from informal arguments and toward defined questions: whether the founder intends to retire, what responsibilities the successor is prepared to assume, which family members should retain ownership and what conditions would justify an external sale.

The need for such conversations is becoming more urgent. UBS’s 2026 Global Entrepreneur Report, based on responses from 215 entrepreneurs across 26 markets, found that 32% were considering a business transition within the next five years. The proportion increased to 57% among entrepreneurs aged 65 or older. In the United States, 63% of respondents were considering an exit, substantially more than in the other regions covered by the survey.

Those figures indicate that a large number of affluent families may soon face decisions that combine corporate strategy with personal wealth planning. An operating company is often the family’s largest asset, the founder’s primary source of identity and the economic foundation for several households. A succession conflict can therefore affect employment, dividend policy, investment concentration, estate taxes, charitable plans and the financial security of family members who do not work in the business.

UBS found that 40% of surveyed entrepreneurs expected to sell to a strategic buyer within their industry, while 23% planned to transfer the company to the next generation. Smaller shares anticipated selling to a financial investor, completing a merger or pursuing an initial public offering. Each route creates different advisory requirements. A sale may generate substantial liquidity and a need for diversified portfolio management, while an intrafamily transfer raises questions about governance, voting control, compensation and fairness between active and inactive heirs.

Fairness can be particularly difficult to define. Equal ownership may appear equitable but can produce deadlock if only one sibling manages the company. Giving control to the operating heir may protect decision-making but leave other family members concerned that their economic interests are subordinate. Some families may separate voting and nonvoting shares, establish distribution policies or use other assets to balance inheritances. Those structures require legal and tax advice, but an advisor can help the family evaluate how each arrangement affects liquidity, risk and long-term financial independence.

Readiness is another potential source of conflict. Leibell noted that a family member may want succession without being fully prepared to lead. Advisors and governance specialists can encourage families to replace assumptions with objective criteria, such as management experience, operating performance, external employment, education or the ability to work with an independent board. A development plan can give a potential successor a credible path toward leadership while allowing the founder to reduce responsibilities gradually rather than making an abrupt transfer.

This process can slow a transaction, but UBS argues that deliberate dialogue can improve the durability of the outcome. Moving directly to legal documentation may create the appearance of progress while leaving essential disagreements unresolved. A longer process may include individual interviews, joint meetings, written statements of family values, leadership assessments and contingency planning. The objective is not to eliminate every disagreement but to establish a decision-making framework that family members understand before a triggering event such as illness, death or an unsolicited acquisition offer.

Financial advisors must nevertheless recognize the limits of their role. They are not therapists, judges or substitutes for independent legal counsel. When family members have competing interests, advisors may need to disclose potential conflicts, clarify whom they represent and recommend separate counsel where appropriate. A neutral process becomes difficult if one participant believes the advisor is protecting another generation, preserving assets under management or steering the family toward a transaction that benefits the advisory firm.

Coordination among specialists is therefore essential. Succession may require estate attorneys, corporate counsel, tax advisors, valuation professionals, investment bankers, insurance specialists and family-governance consultants. Conflict-resolution professionals may become necessary when communication has broken down. The wealth advisor can serve as a coordinator, helping the family connect the operating-company decision to the owners’ personal balance sheets, income needs, philanthropic objectives and investment strategies.

UBS’s entrepreneur survey suggests that clients already expect multi-professional support. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they would consult lawyers, tax advisors or estate planners when seeking guidance on wealth transfer. Forty-seven percent expected to consult a banker or client advisor, while only 23% planned to rely on advice from children or future heirs. That gap underscores the importance of bringing the next generation into discussions before a plan is effectively complete.

Early participation does not require giving younger family members immediate control. It can begin with education about the company, the family’s ownership structure and the responsibilities attached to inherited wealth. UBS found that 67% of entrepreneurs planned to focus on helping heirs manage wealth responsibly, while 61% were concerned about tax efficiency in transferring assets. Advisors can help families address both priorities by combining financial education with transparent explanations of trusts, governance bodies, investment policies and distribution rules.

UBS’s Global Family Office Report 2026 points to broader preparedness gaps among wealthy families. The survey of 307 family offices found that fewer than half had implemented formal governance frameworks with board-level oversight. Only 35% had a defined succession plan for the family office itself, and just 27% had a structured process for educating and preparing heirs for future roles. Although family office succession is distinct from transferring an operating company, the weaknesses are related: both can suffer when authority, responsibilities and decision rights remain informal.

Governance mechanisms can reduce ambiguity before a disagreement becomes a crisis. UBS’s family advisory practice identifies family constitutions, family councils and other decision-making forums as tools that can connect long-term family strategy with investment, philanthropy and next-generation planning. Such arrangements are not legally identical across jurisdictions, and they do not guarantee harmony. Their value lies in making expectations visible, defining who participates in major decisions and establishing procedures for resolving disputes.

For advisors, business succession should also be treated as a portfolio-risk issue. Founders frequently hold a substantial portion of their net worth in one privately owned company. A delayed transfer can leave the family exposed to concentration risk, key-person risk and uncertainty over future cash flows. A rushed sale, however, may generate an unfavorable valuation or create a large pool of liquid assets before the family has agreed on investment objectives. Wealth planning therefore needs to proceed alongside, rather than after, the succession strategy.

Scenario analysis can help connect family preferences with financial consequences. Advisors may model a strategic sale, management buyout, gradual intrafamily transfer or continued founder ownership. Each scenario can be tested against retirement spending, taxes, debt, insurance needs and the financial positions of different family branches. The resulting analysis does not decide the emotional question of who should lead, but it can make trade-offs more concrete and reduce disputes based on incomplete financial assumptions.

Liquidity planning is especially important when ownership passes to one heir while others receive cash, securities or other assets. The family may need insurance, borrowing capacity, staged redemptions or dividend arrangements to avoid forcing the company into an untimely sale. Advisors can also help assess whether the founder’s personal wealth outside the business is sufficient to support retirement, a concern highlighted by UBS’s finding that nearly one-third of entrepreneurs believed they had not accumulated as much private wealth as they could have.

The advisor’s influence may continue after control changes. A family that sells its company must shift from running an operating enterprise to managing financial capital, often with different governance and risk disciplines. Family members accustomed to reinvesting in the business may disagree over spending, diversification or private-market allocations. A family that retains the company must establish how the outgoing founder will interact with new leadership and whether continued involvement supports or undermines the successor.

UBS’s message is that successful succession requires more than selecting a transaction and completing documents. Advisors can contribute by creating a credible process, encouraging early dialogue and ensuring that technical recommendations reflect the family’s actual relationships and objectives. Collaboration cannot guarantee agreement, particularly in families with longstanding disputes. It can, however, reduce the risk that silence, unclear expectations or competing professional teams turn a manageable transition into a destructive conflict.

For wealth-management firms, these demands are expanding the definition of advice. Portfolio performance remains important, but business-owning clients may judge an advisor by the ability to coordinate specialists, communicate across generations and protect decision-making from avoidable disruption. As more founders approach retirement, the advisor who can help a family discuss control, competence and legacy before a crisis may become central to preserving both the enterprise and the wealth it created.