This drains precisely the cohort needed to renew and lead New Zealand’s mid-market businesses. When succession planning fails at this level, it represents not isolated outcomes but a systemic erosion of locally owned enterprise. Succession planning cannot be treated as an end-stage exit exercise. And for advisers, it means challenging clients earlier and more directly about succession readiness, even at the risk of uncomfortable conversations. Every capable manager who leaves the mid-market, every business that defaults to consolidation because internal transition was not viable, and every founder who delays succession planning until options have narrowed contributes to a broader pattern.

Source: New Zealand Herald January 02, 2026 04:30 UTC