China News Service, Beijing, November 2 (Chen Haoxing) A large number of private enterprises in my country that were founded in the early stages of reform and opening up are entering a critical window period for intergenerational inheritance. Commissioned by the China Private Economy Research Association, the 2026 Private Enterprise Sustainable Inheritance and Development and Risk Management Public Welfare Forum opened in Beijing on the 1st, focusing on this important issue related to enterprise development.
Jiang Bixin, deputy chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Supreme People's Court and vice president of the China Federation of Social Work, pointed out at the meeting that the root cause of the decline of most enterprises lies in disordered inheritance, governance failure, and the loss of the rule of law. Once intergenerational handover occurs, systemic risks such as equity turmoil and loss of control rights are prone to occur.
The forum released the "Intergenerational inheritance under the superposition of uncertain factors - a report on sudden forced inheritance and tens of billions of inheritance of listed private enterprises". The report uses two sets of samples to conduct empirical research: the first is 457 family businesses with family wealth of more than 10 billion yuan and listed companies, covering 335 A-share companies, 102 Hong Kong stocks, 20 U.S. stocks and 11 Wind first-level industries; the second is 393 sudden succession and forced inheritance incidents publicly disclosed by A-shares from January 2020 to October 2026, involving 379 companies.
The report points out that the main contradiction in China's family inheritance is concentrated in tens of billions of enterprises, and the main aspect of the contradiction lies in sudden succession and forced inheritance. Many large companies have not established risk control and inheritance plans in advance, and are often caught off guard when a crisis strikes.
Gao Mingfei, founder and family inheritance officer of Beijing De Yuze Law Firm, pointed out when releasing the report that about 3 million private enterprises are expected to undergo intergenerational handover in the next 5-10 years, and a large amount of private wealth will be transferred to the next generation in the next 30 years.
In this context, the report suggests that high-risk signals such as elderly actual controllers who have not started inheritance, lack of alternatives for a single heir, and lack of written contract constraints on family shareholdings are worthy of vigilance. When multiple risks are superimposed, the window period left for families to deal with them is often only a few months.
Gao Mingfei believes that although the risk of sudden succession cannot be completely eliminated, the impact can be reduced through advance planning and layered handling. Crisis events may be difficult to predict, but the level of inheritance depends on whether adequate preparations are made before the crisis strikes.
For forced inheritance, enterprises can prepare in advance in three aspects: sign authorization documents in advance to clarify the boundaries of rights and responsibilities; sort out a list of potential risks, investigate them one by one, and resolve them in a timely manner; and set up isolation mechanisms in advance for possible risk transmission to avoid the spread of local problems.
