Ben Handley
Private Clients and OMB, Tax Partner
Family businesses are the backbone of the UK economy. Families can be a source of strength and bring a unity of purpose and long-term vision that helps drive a business. Mixing family and business can also create a specific set of challenges.
These can include the roles open to family members, the demands of balancing family and non-family stakeholders or maintaining engagement with a large and disparate group of family shareholders. Governance, conflict management and succession planning are just some of the areas where we help family-owned businesses to make the most of their attributes and continue their success.
Our clients include a range of family-owned and family operated businesses. We work with first generation businesses with a single shareholder as well as multi-generational businesses with a broad group of shareholders and stakeholders.
Family businesses; planning for long-term success
As a family becomes more successful, complexity can also increase. You are busier, you own more assets, your family has grown and moved. With all these balls in the air, you can reach a point where you would benefit from more formal planning and expert advice in managing all this.
In the short term you might want to understand the best way to structure a new property acquisition or PE investment or perhaps what needs to be considered when a family member moves country. Then there are the more long-term projects such as articulating family values and creating a family constitution, preparing younger family members for their future roles and legacy and succession planning.
Looking after the family in Family business
At the other end of the spectrum, you may already have or be considering a Family Office to manage and coordinate the many and varied interests of your family outside the family business. We offer a comprehensive range of Family Office advisory services.
We offer a wide range of services for enterprising families and can advise and support you on more than just tax.
Family business; Governance and succession
Common areas of interest among our clients include planning for the involvement of younger family members in the business, managing a large group of family shareholders and implementing family governance arrangements such as family councils. For others, they are trying to decide whether to retain or sell the business they founded or beginning a journey to diversify away from the family’s core business and broaden their portfolio of investments.
We can advise and support you through these discussions, share the experiences of other families who have gone through a similar process and help you to put in place and implement plans that will stand the text of time.