As the age of business owners increases, larger number of companies expect decrease in profitability. Impact of Ageing on Company Profit (Source: Whitepaper on Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, 2013) Many companies have difficulties in selection/recruitment of successor and customer relations (after the retirement of the current business owners.) (Source: Whitepaper on Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, 2019) Types of Business Succession For those who do not have successors

The number of small and medium-sized business (SMMs or SMEs) in Japan is decreasing, primarily due to the ageing of business owners and low rate of founding. Definition of SMBs in Japan According to the above definition, 99.7% of business entities are small and medium-sized businesses, and they employ 70.1% of total working population in Japan. As the graph below shows, the total number of small and medium-sized companies has decreased from 4.8m to 3.6m from 1999. (Source: Wh