Family business owners, regardless of industry, share common issues. Most agree that by the end of the journey, they want to have leveraged the work of a lifetime to support their future lifestyle. Many business owners struggle to figure out what to do with their [...]
Li Ka-shing’s son Victor has a lot to live up to. Here’s how he, and any successor to a family business, can make a success of keeping it in the family “In the traditional Chinese way of doing things, control of the business is always [...]
“TOO long” was how Li Ka-shing, known fondly by locals as chiu yan (Superman) for his business nous, described his working life when he announced on March 16th that he would be retiring in May. Asia’s pre-eminent dealmaker has been around for longer than his [...]
Experts estimated that there are 5.5 million family businesses in the United States that contribute $8.3 trillion to the economy, employ 63 percent of the workforce and account for 57 percent of U.S. gross domestic product and 78 percent of new job creation. But Anne [...]
On Monday, C. Mondavi & Family announced that the next generation of the Mondavi family is officially increasing its involvement in the family’s business. This increased involvement focuses on the CK Mondavi and Family brand with the inclusion of this fourth generation as shareholders in [...]
The consensus among family business owners, according to The Family Business Institute, is that their businesses will continue to be owned by the same family or families at least five years from now. However, many of the 88 percent of owners who believe this will [...]
Economist Joseph Schumpeter famously identified owner-entrepreneurs as key enablers of economic development. But, once entrepreneurial companies evolve into family firms, can they maintain that positive role in society? Family-owned businesses are often portrayed as the engine of the private sector—pointing at advantages such as faster [...]
A lot of family businesses in Nigeria have died due to the demise of the founder. For some that are still alive and struggling, they are enmeshed in controversies as the children continue to fight over their share of the investments while the business nosedives. [...]
How to attract, select and retain talent is a challenge for both family and nonfamily businesses but even more so in family businesses because of the complexity of the intertwined relationship between the family and the business systems. Millennials have surpassed the previous generation in [...]
Though late on the scene, standalone family firms have established themselves as formidable players This article was first published in Forbes India magazine, Issue: March 02, 2018; Authors: Kavil Ramachandran and Nupur Pavan Bang http://www.forbesindia.com/article/column/the-rise-and-rise-of-family-firms/49485/1 The year 1991 ushered in a new dawn for the [...]
Family firms usually start out as simple organizations. But as they develop and grow they face greater complexities and challenges, often leading to tensions among the owning family over how they run the firm together. A common solution is to develop a family constitution outlining [...]
In family businesses, family assets are the unique and often intangible contributions that only families can bring to their firms and are essential to their identities. Long-lived family firms always need to identify and develop those unique family assets that have been sustained and enhanced [...]
Germany has a long culture of family-owned and privately held businesses, the so-called Mittelstand. These businesses typically have long-term growth goals and try to align commercial goals with the interests of their employees and other stakeholders, including the communities where they are located. Germans are [...]
JAB Holdings has cooled its coffee spending spree, striking a deal to buy its first cold drinks company, Dr Pepper Snapple, in a move which has bemused market commentators. Luxembourg-based JAB, which mainly controls the wealth of Germany’s Reimann family, has announced it will buy [...]
Like many family business owners, Phil Dudderidge reached the point where he wanted to take some value out of the enterprise that he had built up over more than two decades. Mr Dudderidge, executive chairman of the company, Focusrite, describes his decision to float it [...]
With the passage of President Donald Trump’s tax plan, family-business entrepreneurs seem to be getting a big bump in social investment and corporate growth. Yet this tax overhaul isn’t without its problems. Especially when it comes to the private-equity space, the plans to limit deductions [...]
It was in 1949 when Elgar Burgeson decided that it was time to start his own company. He then put his mastery to work. That was when his daughter, Dianne Burgeson, president and CEO of the company, was three years old. Dianne has now been [...]
Most companies have sensitive issues that nobody talks about, but avoiding touchy subjects in family firms can be catastrophic. Eric Clinton, director of the DCU Centre for Family Business, draws a distinction between the family-first family business and the business first family business. Those in [...]
Mediterra Bakehouse in Pittsburg is owned by Nick Ambeliotis, a gentle Grecian giant. Ambeliotis might live and work in Pittsburgh, but he still considers Cleveland home. He grew up in Warren, Ohio, attended John Carroll University, and maintains season tickets to the Browns. For nearly [...]
What to do if you’re a 95-year-old billionaire and you live in a country with inheritance taxes as high as 65 per cent? That’s the challenge facing the family of coffee baron Kim Jae-myeong, honorary chairman of Dongsuh group. It’s a common story in South [...]
Venture Capital firms (VCs) and family-owned business groups are not natural partners. VCs want strong minority rights, an ability to change management if the company underperforms, and do not mind dilution in shareholdings and control if the company’s valuation grows. By contrast, family-owned business often [...]
Family businesses are a vital part of the Kenyan economy, and their continuity and success often depend on the transition from one generation to the next. In the Kenyan economy, it has been found that less than one-third of family businesses survive the transition from [...]
The rumours that swirled around the American east coast city of Baltimore in 1895 were grossly inaccurate. The word on the street was that the Loane family business had shut. So Javez Loane, who at the time ran the business that made sails, window awnings, [...]
A 2011 report estimated that around 80 percent of China’s private companies were family-run. If we define family enterprises as any enterprise where the founder or their family holds more than 50 percent of the shares, then they probably number in the millions. In the [...]
The 120 years old Godrej Group has emerged as an icon among family businesses in India, not only for its economic achievements but also for its relentless focus on achieving excellence in corporate governance. In an interview with Sougata Ray, Professor of Strategy, Indian Institute [...]
Ziad Salloum and his father Samir are both lawyers with expertise ranging from “day to day stuff” as Salloum Jr puts it (acquisitions, contracts, sales), to managing a business handover from one generation to next—a process arguably more about personalities than professionalism. Established in 1980 [...]
Hilti Corporation is a global company that has been consistently rated as one of the best for people practices, by Fortune and the Sunday Times. Professor Kavil Ramachandran, Executive Director of the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise, Indian School of Business, in a freewheeling [...]
China has a problem with family businesses: a sizeable number are preparing to hand over control to the next generation. However — in a development that some say will hurt and others think might help the world’s second-biggest economy — some may not stay in [...]
Providing financial advice to a family running a business is complex, according to a Europe-wide study that highlighted challenges around growing a business and managing its wealth across generations. This important advisory market segment is increasingly being impacted by a ‘war for talent’, according to [...]
A significant minority of highly successful business-owning families excel and thrive through several generations: Miele, Follett, Takanashi, Henkel, and many more. These families have much to teach us: not only on governance, strategy and business management, but also social and environmental responsibility and economic development. [...]
A family business run through a limited company will typically be financed in its early stages by a mixture of equity (via money invested in shares), and/or loans from the family shareholders and possibly by an overdraft facility with its bankers. As the business develops, [...]
A family business has many challenges as it grows and corporate governance is often pushed to the back burner as more urgent, not necessarily important, day to day activities and expansion concerns take up the owner managers’ time. The board is the most significant instrument [...]
Family-Owned companies in Fiji are a crucial piece of society and the country's corporate landscape. This can be a good thing as family businesses have long been the engine of growth for economies around the world. However, family businesses often have short life spans. To [...]
At a time where many enterprises are still debating about making the move into Industry 4.0, local family business Onn Wah Precision Engineering is already powering ahead. Ambitious plans that managing director Lam Keng Yew, a second-generation business owner, has in the works include 3D [...]
Here is a question – especially for self-made businessmen and women. A man spends a decade building a business to a £10million plus turnover and then goes on holiday leaving in charge a management team with an average age less than 21. He is away [...]
Pablo Isla, the CEO of Inditex, has just been nominated as the best boss in the world by the Harvard Business Review. His success looks to be influencing other family businesses in his home country to rely more on outsiders to run their businesses. Isla, [...]
A study by the EDHEC Family Business Centre shows the rate of intra-family business succession in France is below 20%. While the tax environment exerts a significant impact on the low rate of family succession, it represents only the tip of the iceberg. Researchers agree [...]
“What’s wrong — is the company going bankrupt? Are we being sold?” For Charlie, who had joined his family’s bakery business two years after getting his MBA and earning his stripes at another company, this question from the plant manager came out of the blue. [...]
Whether true or not, blue bloods in America and aristocrats in Europe have a reputation of blowing fortunes. When you’ve got everything the material world offers entrepreneurship isn’t a priority and fortunes can disappear fast. But no so for the scion of one of America’s [...]
Mishal Kanoo is tired. Asked if he is having a busy day, the chairman of century-old Gulf conglomerate the Kanoo Group inhales deeply on his cigar and responds: “Twenty four hours in a day is not enough. If you sleep too little, it’s miserable, and [...]
Watching New Economy starlets like Amazon steal all the headlines, it would be easy to assume family empires are a dying breed, rapidly being replaced by corporations where meritocracy rules, capital runs free, ownership is traded swiftly and the financials are posted for all to [...]
The role of the family business leader depends on the background of the family, its structure and the conditions under which he assumes that role. Someone who becomes the leader during times when the family and its business is struggling may face very different kinds [...]
The concept of family togetherness has changed considerably in the Indian context in the past few decades. India was a largely holistic society in which people lived in large joint families. They shared their roof, wealth, occupation and emotions with all other members of the [...]
Statistics show that family businesses employ about 80% of the labor market. Although it may be difficult to distinguish family from nonfamily businesses, in Asia (as in the rest of the world) businesses are predominantly family-owned. The character of a business changes when professionals come [...]
In study done by the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise at the Indian School of Business, significant trends in transition in family businesses were noticed. Leadership in family business seems to be undergoing a phenomenal change. While earlier it was autocratic, now it is [...]
Singularity, the private investment office of the Nigerian-based Dawlish family, is one of a handful of family offices based in Africa that’s investing directly in the continent’s vibrant startups. Since it was set up three years ago, Singularity has made more than 14 direct investments, [...]
It is very difficult to generalise and say that dynastic succession is bad for family firms. In the end, firms that are well-governed and professionally managed, irrespective of being family-managed or not, are the ones that are sustainable. It is easier for the incumbent family [...]
It's our belief that a significant percentage of family business failures are a byproduct of families and their advisers having given comparatively much less attention to the antecedent imperative to succession planning- employment planning. Without thoughtful employment planning, families increase the risk of succession planning [...]
PwC conducted in-depth conversations with 35 next gens from 21 countries and polled more than 100 additional next gens for its new report, Same passion, different paths: How the next generation of family business leaders are making their mark. The results showed an incoming [...]
Indian family businesses flourished and contributed significantly to the growth of the economy in the post liberalisation era A study conducted by the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise at the Indian School of Business (ISB) reveals that liberalisation led to the rise of [...]