Family businesses in Singapore more eager than global peers to exit

MORE family businesses in Singapore intend to sell the business or head for an initial public offering (IPO), compared to their global counterparts, a PwC survey on Thursday found.

The global survey, which involved 53 respondents from Singapore, showed that 32 per cent of those polled had plans to sell or float their business in the future. This is much higher than the global average of 20 per cent.

Of these, 17 per cent of family businesses here have plans to sell the business to a private equity investor; 13 per cent would sell the business to another company, 9 per cent would offload the business to a management team, and 8 per cent would go for an initial public offering.

The PwC family business survey covers family companies in at least 40 countries with a sales turnover of more than US$5 million. The results came from interviews with top executives in more than 2,000 companies between April and August this year.