Retiring business owners linked with northern entrepreneurs

A northern business development agency is identifying companies that may be at risk of closing in the future because their owners haven’t found someone to take over after they retire.

The outmigration of workers leaving northern New Brunswick to find jobs in other parts of Canada has meant there are fewer people to step in and run small businesses in the region.

Pascal Frenette, a spokesperson for Community Business Development Corp. (CBDC) Chaleur, said the lack of succession planning is a growing problem in northern New Brunswick.

“It's possible in rural regions that there's businesses that are well known in the region, for so many years, that it's a possibility to be part of that business and maybe one day becoming the next owner of that business,” Frenette said.

Succession planning wasn’t always a problem for many businesses. Frenette said businesses would often be handed down within families and without any need to look for external help.

“In bigger families, the father or the mother had their first-born child working closely with them and the business was automatically going from generation to generation,” he said.

So Frenette and the local CBDC are creating a registry of businesses and they are finding out who has a succession plan and who might be struggling.

Gilles Olscamp's business, Music City in Bathurst, is the kind of business that Frenette’s registry might have been able to help.

Olscamp and three band mates opened Music City in 1979 and when it became hard to sustain three incomes, he bought out the other owners.

But after 35 years, Olscamp is ready to retire and that means Music City will close because he doesn't have a plan in place to pass it over to another owner.

“My children were well established in their careers. They don't want to take it over and I don't blame them,” he said.

“Retail today is a tough business.”

While retail can be tough, Olscamp said he is hopeful that the business organization will be able to match up potential entrepreneurs with existing businesses.

“If you have a dream, go for it even if it seems to be tough at times and it is,” he said.

“There are lots of ups and downs, but I've lived and fulfilled my dream I think.”

Olscamp said he expects his store to close next month, once the inventory is sold.