This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Bettsy with my colleague, Gene Marks, a small business

columnist for the Guardian newspaper, UK and US edition, a number of distinguished publications,

including our hometown newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquire. And this surprised me, Gene. Most

small business owners don't want their kids to inherit and run the business. Now, this

sits with the statistic you've given for some time that a great number of small businesses

are in the hands of my generation, boomers. And it's time to sell or move on. But they

don't want to sell to their children. Why not? Is there a good reason?

That's a very interesting study was done by Wells Fargo. Just came out last week and they

surveyed over a thousand wealth creators. These are US adults, age 50 or over that have

assets of at least a million dollars that they've raised in their own business. More than

half, 52% of them, John, said that they would prefer not to sell their business to their

kids or even let their kids inherit their businesses. And it's an interesting thumb. For the

most part, these business owners that surveyed really want their children to forge their own

path rather than follow in their footsteps. 94% of the people surveyed, so they would really

like to see their kids be independent and do their own thing. And in the past, we've seen

that transferring ownership to a younger generation that might be a well intentioned thing,

but sometimes they have unintended consequences. I mean, we've seen many cases where assets

are transferred down to kids. You were just not prepared to run the business or don't have the

heart or the desire into it. Finally, a lot of business owners, and this was not brought up by

the survey, but I tell you what I see, John, is that when you sell your business, it's not really

common to just get a check and walk away from it. Most of the time, it's a seller finance thing.

You agree to sell your business for a million dollars, but it's paid out over a period of time.

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