family

In the family council meeting in a city in India, the patriarch of the fast-moving consumer goods family business proudly proclaimed: “I have blocked a bed, nurse, doctor, oxygen cylinder and injection, which will be available for anyone of us if we fall prey to Covid-19. I’m not taking any chances.”

A hand went up: “Uncle, what if more than one of us needed it at the same time?” He smiled and said not to worry.

Attention to strategies for the management and continuity of the assets of entrepreneurial families in Italy has grown considerably in recent years, as has the role and scope of family offices.

Family offices are by definition the custodians and controllers of these—often immense—family assets and today represent a truly diverse universe.

Anheuser-Busch, Champagne Taittinger, Malt-O-Meal and The Wall Street Journal are some illustrative examples of the behaviour of family owners relinquishing the control of the business, not without expressing regret after the sale.

In family businesses, the underlying processes of the divestment decision-making are not only driven by financial logics, but also by emotional logics. How do they play out across family business archetypes and what families can do to make the right decision of selling or not selling the business with limited regret?

The tragic death of Olivier Dassault in a helicopter accident brings into focus how life can change—and end—in an instant, leaving families in shock and facing the difficult challenges of traumatic bereavement.