Minister Miriam Dalli launches new incentives aimed at ensuring continuity of family businesses

Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainable Development Miriam Dalli announced incentives totalling €1 million aimed at enabling the continuation of family businesses to be passed onto next generations.

The incentives, in collaboration with the Family Business Office and Malta Enterprise, would serve family businesses that wish to seek professional assistance and guidance for the scope of transferring and/or passing on businesses, thus ensuring their very own survival by way of succession plans. For this aim, registered family businesses can benefit from up to €15,000 over a three-year period for succession planning.

The advisory and mediation incentives were launched at JMartans, a first-generation family business in operation since 2005.

In her address, Minister Miriam Dalli described family business as a pillar of the Maltese economy. “Further support is required by family businesses in order to secure their very survival for generations to come. The aim of these incentives seeks to secure this as they will provide registered family businesses with the required financial support to recruit professional assistance to assist them with the development of a succession plan,” the minister said.

The Regulator of the Family Business Office Joseph Gerada emphasised the importance of planning for a healthy succession of the family business. “Planning for succession is not an easy task. It can take years in many cases. This incentive will provide our family businesses with that extra help required to make sure that they have the right people to assist them with this time consuming, sometimes difficult, but essential exercise,” Gerada said.

It is estimated that throughout the past four years, and since the inception of the Family Business Act, family businesses have benefitted from €23 million in tax savings. Such savings in tax exemptions, have in most cases resulted in the respective businesses investing further in their growth.

On his part, JMartans Director Jonathan Grech explained how as a family business, the company started off 16 years ago operating from a garage and has now grown into a company employing 11 people. “We have sought to diversify our operations throughout the years to not only help us tap into different markets but to also help us to continue to grow, providing continuity in the services we provide,” Grech said.