WEALTHY business owners worldwide are increasingly rethinking their plans for retirement in the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey found. More than half of the 920 individuals and families who own businesses surveyed by BNP Paribas SA and Aon Plc. said they’re altering the timetable for stepping away from their companies, with 41 percent delaying or phasing more slowly into a move and 13 percent accelerating it. Entrepreneurs and families surveyed in the United States were more likely than those elsewhere to be considering either delaying and accelerating their plans, the companies said in a report. The pandemic is forcing many of the world’s rich to reconsider their succession arrangements, while also causing employees across the United States, Asia and Europe to reevaluate how they work and live. Billionaires will transfer more than US$2 trillion within the next two decades to their children, according to research by UBS Group AG and PwC, and the virus is helping accelerate that wealth shift. Mexico’s Juan Francisco Beckmann, 81, recently handed over control of a New York condominium to his daughter after giving her a stake a few years earlier in Becle SAB, the owner of Jose Cuervo tequila. “Older business owners are often delaying retirement to ensure a smooth transition,” said Vincent Lecomte, BNP Paribas Wealth Management’s chief executive officer. (SD-Agencies) | 