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When Brotherly Love Isn't Enough
There are siblings who just can't work together under stress. Then it's a question of how best to part company.
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The Risks in Employing Your Kid for the Summer
Parents who own businesses might seem to have an easy solution to the kids' summer employment problem. Employing children in the family business, however, can pose a delicate dilemma, and the stakes i...
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Mother in the Middle
Gertrude Crain has ruled the family publishing empire by installing her rival sons in separate but equal duchies. Once she's gone, though, the stage may be set for civil war.
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Funerals R Us
Chain-store economics has finally hit the funeral industry, forcing family owned mortuaries to sell, go co-op, or raise the flag of independence.
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A Contrarian's View on Retiring: Don't Do It
If a business owner retires at 65, plays 18 holes of golf a day, 365 days a year, until the day the actuaries predict he'll join the Eternal Cash Flow, he'll have to flog 660,000 golf balls off the en...
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Why We'll Never Go Public
The fourth-generation leader of Johnson Wax praises the enduring advantages of the privately held family firm: Secrecy. Stability. Flexibility. And, yes, generosity.
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They Foresee the Future and it Works for Them
The Kiplingers practically invented the newsletter style of journalism, and were ahead of their time in organizing a family business, too.
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Comes the Revolution at Dexter Corp.
This old-line Yankee family company was accustomed to breaking with the past. But why did it have to turn to an outsider for leadership?
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Using an LBO to Keep a Firm in the Family
John Kramer's recent success created his current dilemma. As a building materials distributor, he had seen sales jump from $5 million to $20 million in five years.Now, at age 60, John was pleased to h...
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To A Son, On His Entering The Business
"Advice is seldom welcome," Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son, "and those who want it the most always like it the least." And yet generations of fathers have, like Chesterfield, offered words of wisd...
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The Smart Way to Cast Off That Shadow CEO
Too frequently, naming Junior as the company CEO is a purely symbolic act. In these cases, the title of chief executive officer sounds important and prestigious, but it signifies nothing.The reason fo...
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Hire Who? What? Pass the Spinach
When business schools teach case studies about family business, a favorite technique is to create a scenario at the family dinner table. Unlike managers of other businesses, who have their big meeting...
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Spinning Off Some Company Assets: A Capital Idea
Capital needs of a family and its business can clash, as CEO Dave Watkins learned at the last meeting of the 17 family shareholders of Watkins Construction Company in Dublin, Idaho. All but two wanted...
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The Politics of Family Boards
One of the boards I serve on engages regularly in a kind of ritualistic jousting with the founder and CEO. We try to show him that he can't continue to violate the most basic of management principles...
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Hooray for Our Team!
Family owners who've become more savvy as promoters, and more aggressive as salespeople, are leading the comeback of minor league baseball franchises.
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How to Benefit from Creative Use of an ESOP
An employee stock ownership plan is not just a way to reward longstanding, loyal employees with a stake in the business. Creatively employed, it can bring significant tax benefits to owners and employ...
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Just Sell High, Buy Back Low, and Watch Your Sales Triple
It's a neat trick if you can pull it off. The Hansbergers did, selling their golf equipment company to Colgate-Palmolive, then buying it back and reaping a bonanza.
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A Death in the Business
Even as Hasbro's brilliant chairman sought to conceal his terminal illness, he was positioning the company for his younger brother.
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How to Negotiate a Compensation Plan, Painlessly
The hired gun
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