I Want to Retire
What does “I want to retire” mean for a family business owner?
For some it means the traditional view of stopping work entirely, but it is not always that clear cut. For others, retirement might be better defined as ‘stepping back a bit but keeping in touch with the business and always being available if needed.”
If you are involved in either planning for retirement or helping someone else to do so, you might find the following discussion involving with Mr/s Jones to be helpful. Mr/s Jones of course does not exist, but you might recognise him or her.
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Who is the Family Business Client?
This short case explores the question of “who is the client?”, given the complexities of family business systems.
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Family Enterprises: Field or Fad
A lot has happened since the field of family enterprise started to emerge as a distinct area of knowledge and practice.
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An Unconventional History of Family Offices
The first family offices in the modern era with their own infrastructure including professional and administrative staff were created by wealthy families to look after the needs of family members, ranging from sophisticated wealth management to household services.
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The Wates Principles
The Wates Corporate Governance Principles, published by the UK Financial Reporting Council (FRC), could be the catalyst for a change in how privately-owned family businesses approach corporate governance.
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How to Choose a Family Business NED
Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) can add value to a family enterprise in several ways. They bring outside experience and independent judgement to bear in major matters requiring board decisions. They can act as a link between the board and the shareholders, provide the benefit of their personal contacts and help to ensure that the overall governance of the family enterprise operates effectively.
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Trust in Governance
Would a family business choose to base how it is governed on the general assumption that the key players are not to be trusted?
If you are likely to answer this question ‘no’ then would it possibly change your mind to know that distrust underlies the model of corporate governance that is often recommended to family businesses as a good model to follow?
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Family Assembly and Family Council
Where there are a small number of family members, some of whom are also involved in the enterprise as owners or managers, important discussions concerning the overlapping interests of the family and the enterprise are likely to take place spontaneously whenever needed. This tends to mean that they happen informally over dinner, at weekends, or during vacations.
However, as a family grows and their enterprise becomes more complex, the governance of the family becomes as important as the other parts of the family enterprise and informal governance may need to be replaced by more formal arrangements.
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The Goals and Tasks of Family Governance
Any strategy that seeks to optimise all forms of a family’s wealth that are connected to their enterprise needs to consider how the family is governed. This blog post looks at the goals and tasks that can be assigned to family governance.
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Working and Non-Working Owners
In this brief blog I have tried to be a reporter of the sides in this argument over working and non-working owners in the belief that there are always different truths to be found in different viewpoints. However, the argument can only be settled by each family doing that they feel is right for them, and others (including advisers) should respectively refrain from passing judgement.
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Bloodline Only or Do We Involve Spouses?
There is no right answer or best practice that works for every family enterprise when it comes to the role of spouses or partners in the family enterprise, so I have tried to present the strongest arguments I can find on both sides.
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The Importance of Shared Purpose
The shared purpose in a family enterprise is the set of goals, objectives or outcomes that the owners are striving to achieve through being in business together, whether that is a commercial business or a family office, or both.
It is helpful to know that research on this matter has established that while families consistently prioritise financial concerns, they also consider non-financial objectives to be highly important.
Read this informative article to learn more about the role of shared purpose in family enterprises.
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The Essential Stages of Succession Planning
Every transition between the generations in a family enterprise must pass through distinct stages. If any stage is ignored or not managed well, the transition will either falter or be unsuccessful.
The stages are Preparation, Disengagement, Exploration, Choice and Implementation and the tasks in each stage are summarised in this informative article.
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The Entrepreneurial Family
The term entrepreneur is usually used to describe driven individuals who take risks and create great businesses, often overcoming many obstacles and challenges in the process. Family enterprises go through this stage like every business, during which the financial and emotional commitment of a family is often tested to support the vision of the business founder. But then what? How do some families achieve entrepreneurial success not just once, but across generations?
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Natural Governance and Why It Matters
Successful family enterprises must be well governed, or they would not be successful in the first place.
This is a plausible assumption, which is opposed to alternatives like, a family enterprise that lacks formal structures, such as a board of directors or a family council, is a void in which governance does not exist.
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