Co-written by Brian Henry, “The Hénokiens: The Families and Firms Who Made History” is a case study of 47 family businesses which have been in the same family for more than 200 years, revealing important insights into how such firms have not just survived, but prospered. Understanding [...]
Stop by Ricci’s Italian Sausage in McKees Rocks this holiday season and you might be served by an orthopedic surgeon or an attorney. The lawyer is Ernest A. Ricci, 30, great-grandson of Ricci’s founder, the original Ernest Ricci, while the surgeon-in-training is Gianni Ricci, 27, [...]
Susan Michel has always taught her four kids a consistent lesson: You get what you earn. Susan, 58, has approached succession planning at her financial advisory business, Glen Eagle, with the same philosophy. The kids have watched her grow the Princeton, N.J., firm from a [...]
The family business is one of the oldest and most common economic organisational models. The significant role they play in the global economy is undeniable, with companies such as BMW, Wal-Mart, Toyota and many more all having started as family businesses, and at some point [...]
Here’s how hard it is for a business to survive 50 years: only about 36 percent of them make it to their 10th birthday, and about 21 percent make it to their 20th anniversary, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. There are many [...]
The story of the Al Fahim Group, today one of the oldest and largest family business conglomerates in the region [UAE], began with a problem many of us are familiar with – cars getting stuck in the sand. In 1960, Abdul Jalil Al Fahim, who [...]
From a tiny office in the front of his store, Bill Nusser gives a friendly wave and hello to all the customers who stop in his jewelry store, much like his father, grandfather and great grandfather before him. Nusser is the fourth generation owner of [...]
More than 110 years ago, Fung Pak-liu, an English teacher, and Li To-ming, a local merchant whose family owned a porcelain shop, started an export trading company in Guangzhou, shipping porcelain, fireworks, jade handicrafts and silk, mainly to the United States. The Fung family have [...]
The Danish family behind the Lego plastic-brick empire is shaking up the company’s ownership structure, elevating an executive widely credited for rescuing the toy maker from the brink of bankruptcy to manage all-things Lego and explore new business ventures. The Kirk Kristiansen family said Lego A/S Chief Executive [...]
In our agrarian past, every farmer wanted 10 sons because all that “free labor” meant he could have a much bigger farm. The patriarch not only controlled the family business, he also generally controlled the career choices his children were allowed to make. That trend [...]
How can an organisation with a relatively small investment team such as a family office deal with the deluge of data that can inform investment processes today? While some family offices show great entrepreneurial spirit, to date many have been slow adopters of technology tools [...]
Nemer Kaleel arrived at Ellis Island from his native Lebanon in 1905, with nothing but his dreams. The 17-year-old Nemer left Beirut on a cattle boat and eventually settled in Spring Valley. He scraped up enough money to buy a horse and buggy, and the [...]
Taking a business from one horse-drawn cart to an international logistics firm is no easy task, but that is exactly what Germany’s Fiege family has accomplished over five generations. Fieges’ road to success has been paved with their unerring work ethic, smart business decisions, and [...]
W Carter & Son has been in the same premises since the business was established nearly 200 years ago. Brian Holmes inherited the company with his brother Tad when their father died in the 1950s. “Apart from carpets and paint, the shop interior is the [...]
Louis Gelder moved from Chicago to Millburg, Mich., near Benton Harbor, bought a hardware store, changed its name and started making high-end leather harnesses for wagons and buggies along with selling hardware and household products in 1910. Business was good through the decades as Louis [...]
Donald Trump is President-elect of the United States of America. He brings with him potential conflicts of interest across all areas of government that are unprecedented in American history. It will be interesting to observe how the Trump administration manages these conflicts of interests, even [...]
JAB Holding is the investment vehicle of Germany’s Reimann family, one of Europe’s wealthiest business families. JAB Holdings is controlled by the second generation of Germany’s Reimann family: Renate Reimann-Haas, Wolfgang Reimann, Stefan Reimann-Andersen, and Matthias Reimann-Andersen. Forbes has estimated that these four family members [...]
As per biannual 2016 Family Business Survey conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the economic climate is hurting Chinese family businesses, with 75 per cent of Hong Kong businesses citing market conditions as their biggest challenge for the next 12 months. As a result, Chinese and Hong [...]
Hancock Prospecting is an Australian mineral exploration and extraction, privately owned, company that holds the rights to some of world's largest iron ore deposit. Gina Rinehart is chairman of Hancock Prospecting, a company founded by her father Lang Hancock. Rinehart has inherited 76.6% of the [...]
As per a new study in the UK, almost all family businesses confess they are operating without a strategy for succession, despite knowing full well the issue of generational transition is looming. A remarkable 97% of family business owners surveyed complained of a lack of [...]
The multinational network equipment maker, Ericsson was founded in 1876 by Lars Magnus Ericsson. The Wallenberg family saved the company from bankruptcy in 1960, and has since controlled the company. However history seems to be repeating itself. In recent quarters, the company has been reporting [...]
The New York Times founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18, 1851, has won as many as 117 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization. Since 1896, when Adolph S. Ochs bought it, the Ochs-Sulzberger family has controlled the newspaper. [...]
Cicli Pinarello SpA, the Italian bicycle maker, was founded in the early 1950s when Giovanni Pinarello, a professional cyclist, received 100,000 pounds to give up his spot at the 1952 Giro d’Italia road cycling competition. He used the money to open a workshop for hand-made [...]
Atlantia SpA is an Italian holding company, controlled by the Benetton family, whose primary asset is Autostrade per l'Italia, the Italian toll-road operator. The main business interests of Atlantia are in infrastructure. The company which has been so far concentrated on projects in Italy now [...]
In continuation with last week’s report on tie-ups among car majors, now a new alliance seems to be forming among Toyota Motor Corp. and Suzuki Motor Corp. The two family run car manufacturers are in talks to share the burden of developing self-driving cars and [...]
A family owned old economy manufacturing behemoth such as Ford is turning towards services as its new growth engine. It intends to generate a 20% return on its new mobility services, or more than twice the profit margin from its traditional business. As per Bill [...]
Two family-owned carmakers BMW and Toyota coming from different parts of the world are cooperating on a number of new ventures. Toyota, owned by the Toyoda family, reported revenues of 28.4 trillion yen ($274 billion) in 2016, while BMW had revenues of €76.8 billion in [...]
James Rupert Jacob Murdoch the chief executive officer of 21st Century Fox, and Chairman of Sky plc received investor backlash earlier this week. This is significant as many analysts view this third-gen Murdoch, the youngest of Rupert Murdoch’s children by his second wife Anna, as [...]
Family business leaders very often serve on one another’s boards. They not only share their experience but are also able to forge links with other important families in the international business world. In one such example John Elkann, 40, joined the board of the “new” [...]
Samsung, the South Korean chaebol, founded in 1938, and owned by the Lee family, is under pressure from the New York based hedge fund Elliott Management. Elliott owns 0.62% of Samsung Electronics. The firm wants Samsung to simplify its complicated ownership structure. It argues that [...]
France's Peugeot family, which owns a 14 percent stake in automaker PSA Group, will further diversify its investments and expand outside of France to strengthen its holding company and offset the weight of its shareholding in the car manufacturer founded by Armand Peugeot in 1896. [...]
Rolling Stone is an American biweekly magazine that focuses on popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner, who is still now the magazine’s publisher. His family controls the publication through Wenner Media. Mr. Wenner’s son Gus, who is currently [...]
German politicians have agreed to changes in the tax rules for people who inherit companies. Under the new compromise thrashed out by a parliamentary mediation committee, most German company heirs will still be freed from inheritance tax if they keep their business running for at [...]
América Móvil is a Mexican telecommunications corporation that is the fourth largest mobile network operator in terms of equity subscribers and one of the largest corporations in the world. América Telecom, the holding company for América Móvil, was incorporated in 2000 by Carlos Slim. It [...]
A.P. Moller–Maersk Group, also known as Maersk, is a Danish business conglomerate based in Copenhagen, Denmark, with subsidiaries and offices in more than 135 countries worldwide and around 89,000 employees. It has been the largest container ship operator and supply vessel operator in the world [...]
Sing Lun Holdings was started by Lee Chee Hung, a Chinese immigrant in Singapore in 1951 as an importer, exporter and wholesaler of textiles. His son, Patrick Lee, moved the company upstream towards apparel manufacturing. The first apparel factory was set up in Singapore in [...]
George Weston Ltd is Canada's largest food processing and distribution company. Founded by George Weston in 1882, the company today consists of Weston Foods, a wholly owned subsidiary, and Loblaw Companies Limited, the country's largest supermarket retailer, in which it maintains controlling interest. The company [...]
In a recent article, Florence Tsai and John A. Davis have outlined the succession problems facing family businesses in China. After the country’s brief 30 year experience with market economy, the founder generation of China’s family businesses have just started their transition to the second [...]
Faber-Castell was founded in 1761 at Stein near Nuremberg by cabinet maker Kaspar Faber. Since then the firm has remained in the Faber family for eight generations. Today it is one of the world's largest manufacturers of pens, pencils, other office supplies and art supplies, [...]
Bouygues SA is a French conglomerate that specialises in construction, real estate development, media, and telecommunications. The company was founded in 1952 by Francis Bouygues and since 1989 has been led by his son Martin Bouygues. In 2015 it had over 120,000 employees in 100 [...]
The Desmarais family controls Power Corp. of Canada, whose interests include stakes in giant companies on three continents. The clan is sometimes described as the closest thing Canada has to business royalty, its power amplified by close ties to presidents, prime ministers, bureaucrats and business [...]
Walmart is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores and grocery stores. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and today has 11,539 stores and clubs in 28 countries. It is the world's largest company by [...]
Gordon Food Service is the largest family-operated broadline food distribution company in North America with an estimated $11.7 billion in annual sales. The company was founded in 1897 by Isaac van Westenbrugge, a 23-year-old Dutch immigrant, and later expanded by his son-in-law Ben Gordon. The [...]
Goya Foods, Inc. is a producer of a brand of foods sold in the United States and many Hispanic countries including Spain, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The company founded in 1936 by Prudencio Unanue Ortiz and his wife Carolina, is headquartered in Jersey [...]
The bid by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp to take over Irish new media company Wireless Group has received backing from more than 92% of Wireless shareholders. According to a joint statement, the cash offer, announced in June and valuing Wireless at £220 million ($289 million), [...]
As per a recent proposal by the US government, it would become harder for wealthy business owners to transfer assets to heirs without paying estate and gift taxes. This proposal would make it harder for taxpayers to claim valuation discounts to reflect the diminished value [...]
Ferrero International SA is an Italian manufacturer of branded chocolate and confectionery products and the third biggest chocolate producer and Confectionery Company in the world. It was founded in 1946 by Pietro Ferrero. The company, remains wholly owned by the Ferrero family, and generates €9.5 [...]
Henkel, founded in 1876, is publicly listed and family-controlled. The German multinational makes industrial and household products including detergent and glue. In the fiscal year 2015, Henkel reported sales of 18.1 billion euros and an operating profit of 2.9 billion euros. More than 80 percent [...]
L'Oréal is a French cosmetics company founded in 1909 by Eugène Paul Louis Schueller. The founding family still owns close to 33% shares in the company that is today the world's largest cosmetics company. The company has a history of making big acquisitions. In 2006 [...]
Ericsson is a multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. The company was founded in 1876 by Lars Magnus Ericsson and is now owned by the Wallenberg family. Today the company employs around 110,000 people and operates in around 180 [...]