The Quiet Succession Wave

Owners putting their company under a holding, per year

Each holding–company pair counted once, at its first publication. 2026 runs to the data date and is shown lighter.

01A record, and still rising

The number of owners placing their company under a holding rose from 250 in 2018 to 601 in 2025, a new high in each of the last three years. The rise is not a side effect of a busier register: per 10,000 register notices, insertions went from 9.8 to 19.5. By 25 September 2026, 418 had been published, against 389 at the same date in 2025. Each holding and operating company is counted once, at its first publication; property companies and reorganisations inside corporate groups are excluded.

December and June: when owners do it

Share of insertions in each month relative to the register's own monthly volume, 2017–2025. 1.0 = the register's normal rhythm.

02December and June

Owners do it at two moments of the year. December carries 2.1 times the share of insertions that the register's normal monthly volume would predict, June 1.65 times and July 1.4 times; February and March only half. December is the balance-sheet date for most companies, so a contribution recorded at year-end starts the new financial year inside the holding. June and July are the season of annual general meetings, which must be held within six months of the year-end and are where statutes and capital are changed.

03No rush before the inheritance-tax vote

The Young Socialists' initiative for a 50% federal inheritance tax on estates above CHF 50 million, rejected by 78.3% of voters on 30 November 2025, was said to be pushing owners to restructure. The register does not show it. In November 2025, 62 owners put their company under a holding, against 59 in November 2024. December rose 19%, in line with the year as a whole. The wave was already under way and continued at the same pace.

Where it happens

Insertions 2021–2025 per 1,000 companies with at least one register notice in the same period, by the operating company's canton.

04Valais, Jura and Bern lead; Zurich and Ticino trail

Relative to the number of active companies, insertions are most frequent in Jura (7.9 per 1,000 companies over 2021–2025), Valais (7.1) and Bern (4.3), and among the lowest in Zurich (2.3), Ticino (2.1) and Thurgau (1.2). Valais, with 232 cases, counts three times as many per company as Zurich. The register does not explain the gap. The density of owner-run family firms and the rulings practice of cantonal tax offices are the likeliest reasons, and both deserve a closer look; small cantons with few cases move a lot from year to year.

What happens next

Share of companies taken over by a third party (absorbed into another company, or recorded as the target of a deal) and share wound up, by years since the insertion. Control: companies with a notice in the same month, same canton, same legal form.

05Not a for-sale sign

We followed 3,280 companies that received a holding between 2017 and 2025, and three comparable companies for each: a register notice in the same month, the same canton, the same legal form. After five years, 5.2% of the companies under a holding had been taken over by a third party, absorbed into another company or recorded as the target of a deal, against 4.9% of the comparison group. After two years the two groups are identical. One limit applies to both: when a holding sells the shares of a company limited by shares, the register publishes nothing. So the data does not prove that no sale happened. It shows that nothing in the register suggests takeovers are more frequent.

06Built to last

What does differ is survival. Within five years, 3.8% of the companies under a holding were wound up, through liquidation or bankruptcy, against 9.3% of the comparison group. They are also larger and more formal: 77% are companies limited by shares, against 44% of all active AGs and GmbHs, and 22% have a statutory auditor, against 7% of active companies. Owners who build a holding are, on the whole, running companies worth structuring.

07What it means for buyers

For a searcher or a buyer, a company under a holding is not a lead because it will be sold soon. It is a lead because it is a durable, formalised company whose owner is already thinking in structures. When the owner does sell, the seller will usually be the holding, not a private person. That seller is outside the five-year indirect-partial-liquidation rule, which changes the negotiation over the target's excess cash and over how the acquisition is financed. And the owner may stay: among the people behind a new holding, 14% had left the operating company's board five years later.

Download the data

Yearly series, seasonality and the canton table, as CSV.

Methodology

Population

Every contribution-in-kind clause in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SOGC/SHAB/FOSC), February 2016 to 25 September 2026, in which a company receives the shares of an operating company in exchange for its own shares. Classified as a holding insertion when the same persons sit on both boards, or when one co-owner moves their stake (partial insertion). Share swaps between unrelated companies, reorganisations inside corporate groups and property companies are excluded: 4,378 insertions. Each pair of holding and operating company is counted once, at its first publication; the 2016 archive publishes many notices twice.

Measures

Yearly and monthly counts: first publication of each pair. Relative rate: insertions per 10,000 register notices in the same year. Seasonality: each month's share of insertions (2017–2025) divided by its share of all register notices. Cantons: insertions 2021–2025 by the operating company's registry canton, per 1,000 companies with at least one register notice in 2021–2025. Backtest: insertions from January 2017 to September 2025; three controls per insertion with a notice in the same month, same registry canton and same legal form, never involved in an insertion; outcomes are counted from 90 days after the start in both groups, so that the insertion itself cannot appear as an outcome; the share at year k uses only companies followed for at least k years. Audit and legal-form comparisons use the 370,716 active companies in the ValIndex universe.

Legal frame

Federal Act on Direct Federal Taxation (DBG, SR 642.11), edition of 2 September 2026: Art. 69 (participation deduction), Art. 20a para. 1 let. a (indirect partial liquidation) and let. b (transposition). Code of Obligations Art. 699 para. 2 (ordinary general meeting within six months of the financial year-end). This study describes the rules; it is not tax advice, and cantonal practice varies.

Sources

Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce notices (archive since February 2016); ValIndex deal records (register and press deals, 2016–2026); ValIndex company universe; Fedlex; Federal Chancellery results of the vote of 30 November 2025.

Limits

The register publishes the sale of shares of a GmbH, but not of an AG: a holding that sells an AG leaves no trace in the operating company's notices. The backtest therefore measures visible takeovers only, in both groups alike. The register does not record the owners' age or the reasons for the step. Detection reads the clause text in German, French and Italian; wording outside the patterns will be missed, which may explain part of the very low figures in a few cantons.