Expertise
Family & Ownership
Behind every family company there is a second institution: the owning family itself, which must decide what it wants from the asset it holds in common.
I advise owning families on the questions that sit above the company, what the ownership is for, who may hold it, how it passes between generations, and what the family owes the company in return for holding it.
The practical work is the design and negotiation of the arrangements that carry those answers: family charters, shareholder agreements read for their human consequences rather than only their legal ones, dividend and reinvestment policy, employment policy for family members, and the forum in which owners meet as owners.
Where the family is large or dispersed, I also advise on the constitution of a family council and its relationship to the board, so that owners have a proper place to speak and the board is not asked to be that place.
