The business generational handover is an extremely important and delicate process, which has considerable repercussions in both the business and family spheres. The needs usually felt by the entrepreneur can be summarised as follows:
1. choice among the heirs of those who will be able to continue to manage the family business;
2. protection of the integrity of the company’s assets against third parties or undesirable family members;
3. maintenance of the founder’s control until his death;
4. continuity in the company’s management policy;
5. prevention of contrasts between young people;
6. preventing children and grandchildren from individually disposing of their interests and putting them at risk for personal economic vicissitudes.

In establishing a trust for the generational transfer of the business, the trustee is entrusted with the ownership of the business and this allows the unity of the corporate structure to be maintained. In the case where the object of the trust is only the company’s shareholdings, the incumbent directors continue to be entrusted with the management without incurring any discontinuity in the company’s management policies. The beneficiaries will be the entrepreneur himself and his family members as far as the annuities are concerned, but as far as the final allocation of the assets is concerned, his descendants according to what is established in the trust deed. The trust is therefore the instrument capable of satisfying all the needs of the entrepreneur thanks to its capacity to give unity to the ownership of shareholdings, to regulate the management methods and the exercise of social rights and also to armour the assets subjected to the trust against individual economic events.