(Yicai Global) July 20 –- Aging entrepreneurs in China's eastern Jiangsu province are encountering the tough challenge of passing on their businesses, earned by a long succession of toiling away before the bloom of China's internet era of Alibabas and Tencents, to the millennial generation unfamiliar with such hard manual labor.

On July 18, dozens of law firms, tax agents, and other institutions from various regions of China gathered in the city of Nanjing to unveil the Big Data Report on Jiangsu Listed Companies' Matrimony and Inheritance Matters, state-backed The Paper reported. The research showed that over 60 percent of Jiangsu's private listed companies had entered a zone of so-called 'red alert,' which meant that the time of stepping toward the pastures of retirement was nearing rapidly.

"The oldest startup entrepreneur has reached the age of 85," said Sun Tao, senior managing partner of Grandall Law Firm's Nanning branch. "The top concern of these family companies now is how the heirs can undertake their predecessors' hard-earned business and keep it running," Sun added.

Nearly 40 percent of 380 listed Jiangsu-based companies are family-owned businesses and the controllers of these firms now average nearly 53 in age, the report released.

The aging chiefs have given birth to a generation of youth unlike any other in China. For instance, Zhang Kangyang, who was born in 1991 and is the son of home appliance retail giant Suning Group's founder Zhang Jindong, acts as the vice president of Suning International and is responsible for its global business expansion. Nanjing-based Suning bought the top Italian soccer team Inter Milano in 2016, which should add to assets under Zhang's watch.

The senior Zhang appointed his nephew Zhang Kangli, born in 1981, to become the vice president of Suning Universal Group, the firm's Nanjing-based real estate arm. The junior Zhang had an estimated wealth of USD710 million in 2015, data from Wealth-X, a wealth intelligence consultancy firm shows. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a master's degree in human resource management and economics.

Another young successor is Zhou Lichen, the son of men's clothing manufacturer Heilan Group's Chairman Zhou Jianping, born in 1988, who already acts as the president for the firm. Zhou Lichen graduated from Tsinghua University with a degree in finance.

"Even if the heirs of these family businesses are willing to take over the companies, they still face the problem of smooth handover," Sun said, adding that the reason is that most of the second-generation successors do not have work experience at the grassroots level, and they have never experienced the storms of entrepreneurship as the previous generation did, which puts them into danger of deep anxiety once the going gets rough.

The first-generation entrepreneurs need to formulate a retirement plan and train a successor within a carefully selected time period, Sun said, adding that in this way the successor can integrate with the corporate culture and the management team to make this transition process smooth for all.

Editor: Emmi Laine