On the occasion of the 5^th European SME Transfer Summit in Luxembourg today, Transeo officially launches the first online platform for pan-European business transfers. This unique marketplace not only comes to fill a long-standing gap, it also creates new opportunities!

 Transeo, the European Association for SME transfers, seizes the opportunity of its 5^th European SME Transfer Summit, co-organized with the Luxembourg Ministry of Economy, the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce/House of Entrepreneurship, SOWACCESS (SOWALFIN Group) and the Walloon Government (Belgium), to officially launch the “Transeo Marketplace”. The first obvious objective is to provide an online meeting place for business sellers and buyers (the profiles being placed on the platform by professionals), thereby stimulating acquisitions and growth of SMEs internationally. But not only! The previous will also help decrease European market opacity and fragmentation, hopefully enticing better cooperation between Member States on the longer run.

Making those yet untapped opportunities available to both sellers and buyers comes at a key moment for the Old Continent: the impact of the ageing population on our economies no longer requires demonstration and a large number of business owners are therefore expected to transfer their company in the coming decade in order to safeguard its continuity. By enabling the right people to meet at the right time, Transeo hereby puts all the potential of the Internet to the benefit of cross-border acquisitions of SMEs and creates a genuine growth accelerator for EU countries.

“Europe needs more jobs, more growth and more opportunities. Business transfer can contribute to this by better preserving existing companies and developing awareness-raising campaigns is therefore crucial in this respect”,says MrsElżbietaBieńkowska, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. “We also need simpler and more supportive regulation as well as transfer-friendly taxation. Another part of the answer lies in efficient marketplaces for buyers and sellers, coupled to quality advice and mentoring throughout the whole process. Finally, suitable financial schemes for takeovers are essential as well. To that end, Member States must address the business transfer issue and develop adequate action plans. The launch of this new Transeo Marketplace to stimulate cross-border acquisitions of SMEs is therefore excellent news! This is a very good example of how EU-supported projects can become sustainable if they have committed partners helping them forward”.

Transeo Chairman Jean-Pierre Di Bartolomeo adds : “In almost 10 years of existence, Transeo has achieved ambitious undertakings: from stimulating exchanges of good practices between its 50 members in 16 countries, through making our European SME Transfer Summits a renowned event worldwide with business transfer experts from all over the globe, to becoming a reference for the EU institutions themselves. We are proud to reach this new milestone and look forward to disseminating this marketplace to all EU SMEs looking to expand through the acquisition of a business in another country!”.