In 2016, Li Ka-shing was hospitalized. News broke, and the share price of his holding company fell.
That same year, Run Run Shaw — then 100 years old — was also hospitalized. The news came out, and TVB's stock went up.
Two founders. Two health scares. Two completely different market reactions.
What the market is really measuring
When Wang Yung-ching passed away in 2008, ten Formosa Plastics stocks hit the daily trading limit — downward. In contrast, when Stanley Ho's succession was announced, the market responded with confidence.
A study from China Europe International Business School found that what gets passed down in a succession isn't just the business — it's the founder's values and the spirit that built it. That's what the market is actually pricing.
Research across 250 companies in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore found that in the five years following a succession, share prices fell on average from 100 to 40. The missing 60% rarely comes back.
The market is giving a grade. It's grading whether the succession was genuinely ready.
What's really inside that "not yet"
In the work of walking alongside families, one scene comes up again and again — with different names, but the same shape.
A founder who built a company from nothing to two hundred people. A capable, trusted son who's been in the organization long enough to have earned real credibility. Every external signal says the timing is right. And yet, every time the conversation turns to a specific date, the answer is: "Let the market settle a bit more." "Give him a little more time to develop." "After this deal closes."
Most founders aren't unwilling to hand over. They just haven't found a place to stand once they do.
For many, the business isn't just a job or an asset. It's the most concrete expression of decades of effort — the way they're known in their industry, in their community, in their own family. Stepping back means that position slowly passes to someone else. And that's a real thing to sit with.
A lawyer and a financial advisor can't help with that. But it's worth thinking through honestly.
Not letting go — relocating
At GraceFO, when walking with a founder through this transition, there's a reframe that sometimes helps:
It's not "letting go." It's finding a different position to keep showing up from.
In a relay race, the person who passes the baton doesn't leave the race. They move to a different vantage point — the one who knows this stretch of track better than anyone, who can see the full picture, whose word carries the most weight in a critical moment.
That position has its own kind of gravity. It's just different from before.
For the successor reading this
If you're the one waiting for the handoff, and you've read this far — maybe that "not yet" looks a little different now.
Most of the time, it isn't an assessment of you. It's the founder working through something internal, at their own pace.
What you can offer isn't pressure. It's letting them see that when the baton is in your hands, there's still a chapter in this story that belongs to them — and it's worth being present for.
Two generations aligning on what succession means rarely happens all at once. GraceFO walks alongside families through exactly this stretch of the road.
