Amid a politically uncertain landscape, the main concerns for the world’s and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) most affluent people are wealth preservation, capital growth and succession planning, according to Knight Frank’s annual Attitudes Survey, produced exclusively for The Wealth Report. The Survey looks [...]
The concept of corporate governance was invented after the recent economic crisis that led to the bankruptcy of several European and American companies. This new concept is an integrated system based on the construction of three main pillars of direction, control and execution. There lies [...]
Could something called the Lindy Effect help to understand why family businesses often survive for so long? Possibly - but one thing is for sure, the Effect offers an intriguing explanation for why some businesses survive longer than others. The Lindy Effect says that the [...]
PwC Family Business Survey Being the ‘boss’s child’ throws up some unique challenges for the next generation of family business leaders. There are a number of ‘gaps’ that the next generation face: the generation gap between their experience and expectations, and those of their parents’; [...]
Family businesses form the backbone of the Irish economy, accounting for more than 40 per cent of all private sector employment. The benefits of families working together, with uniquely intimate closeness and trust, have provided a foundation for a proven business model. Family business leaders [...]
Lynda Smith Swann is the president and owner of National Wholesale, a women’s apparel business, started in 1952, which is now celebrating its 65th year of business. Although Lynda grew up at National, she went into counseling after receiving her undergraduate in psychology and her [...]
Pat Menzies was 19 when he got a job at Spencer Wade shoe store in the then brand new Canterbury Arcade on Auckland's Queen Street. Just a few years later, in the early 1970s, Wade offered his employee the opportunity to take over the business, [...]
Joining a family business isn’t for everyone. It’s a risky decision that needs a lot of careful consideration. You might build a successful dynasty that grows into a Fortune 500 company, with generations of family continuing to lead the business. Or, like the vast majority [...]
The Wallenberg family’s main philanthropic vehicle, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation (KAW), which celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, is the second-biggest backer of basic scientific research in Europe, having distributed SKr24bn or $2.7bn in its lifetime. As much as the foundation has done [...]
Since the company's inception in 1959, Ping has been a family-run business. The recent elevation of John K. Solheim, the oldest son of Ping chairman and CEO John A. Solheim, and grandson of company founder Karsten Solheim, to the next president of Ping maintains that [...]
Just like in any sport, gymnasts need a place to train. However, these places require a monthly payment for training, competing and much more. For MaJe Lee, University of Utah gymnast Kari Lee’s mother, instead of writing that check every month for her five kids, [...]
Family firms aren’t typically thought of as particularly innovative. More often, they’re viewed as risk averse, traditional, and stagnant. However, many family-owned businesses are among the most innovative in their industries. Consider Herr’s Potato Chips and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. There are countless other examples of family [...]
Shortly after Woodrow Cross founded Cross Insurance out of his family’s home in Bangor, Maine, in 1954, he sold his first insurance policy for just seven dollars. More than 60 years and nearly 115 agency acquisitions later, with roughly 800 employees and offices throughout New [...]
Gaylord’s oldest restaurant and one of the city’s most iconic businesses is temporarily closed after longtime owner Bob Doumas sold the Sugar Bowl and retired. As of 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, the Sugar Bowl, located at 216 W. Main St., closed. It has been [...]
According to legend, The Rockefeller Foundation coined the term ‘impact investing’ in 2007, putting a name to investments made with the intention of generating both financial return and social/environmental impact. Has the concept reached maturity nearly a decade later? Family offices around the world are [...]
Family owned corporations are subject to the same statutory requirements regarding entity governance as non-family owned businesses. Thus, in order to fully comply with the applicable statute for the state where the business is incorporated, a family business should pay attention to all provisions that [...]
Razak Dawood ’68, the chairman of Descon, a family-run power, engineering, and chemical conglomerate based in Pakistan, manages more than 14,000 multinational employees across seven countries. Dawood spoke about his own experiences and offered five crucial tips for running a successful family enterprise at Columbia [...]
If it snowed more than 7 inches on New Year’s Day, customers who had bought a fur, leather or other coat at Ribnick Luxury Outerwear in December would have been entitled to a full refund. Bill Ribnick, president of the Warehouse District business, wasn’t sweating [...]
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 [...]
