Corporate Finance & Planning Insights for Multi-Generational Family Businesses
As directors of private family businesses, you’re no strangers to the delicate balance of maintaining harmony among shareholders while safeguarding the company’s long-term stability. In this week’s post, we dive into a related but often overlooked tool: buy-sell agreements. These agreements act as a safety net, ensuring smooth transitions when life throws curveballs, such as a shareholder’s departure, death, or divorce.
A few weeks ago we released our newest booklet, “Dividend Policy in 30 Minutes.” Whether you read the digital copy, requested a physical booklet, or haven’t gotten a chance to look at it yet, in this short video Travis Harms explains how to go about the decision-making process regarding distribution and why considering various shareholder characteristics and business attributes matters. Travis highlights how the balance between shareholder certainty and board discretion can foster a better understanding of maintaining the sustainability of the business and help promote positive shareholder engagement.
U.S. companies are on pace to buy back over $1.1 trillion of their own stock in 2025 — an all-time high. For public companies, the logic is straightforward: reducing the number of shares outstanding can boost earnings per share and, presumably, the company’s stock price. Family businesses are much less likely to use share repurchases in the same way. In this week’s post, we cover how family businesses are more likely to use share redemptions as motivated by shareholder concerns: liquidity needs, diversification preferences, or a desire to no longer be in business with the rest of the family.
We are excited to offer our readers a physical version of our piece, “Dividend Policy in 30 Minutes: A Guide for Family Business Directors and Shareholders.” The purpose of this booklet is to help family business directors formulate and communicate a dividend policy that contributes to family shareholder wealth and satisfaction. We hope this provides a helpful resource for you and your fellow directors and shareholders.
Family business directors generally have little perspective on how other companies handle certain items like capital allocation, capital structure, and dividend policy. With the release of our 2025 Family Business Benchmarking Study, we aim to fill that gap.
This week’s post focuses on the study which provides an overview of U.S. macroeconomics and examines key financial areas relevant to family businesses. Each section includes both data analysis and insights to help family business directors interpret the findings and apply them to strategic decisions.
Our family business advisory practice is focused on three strategic financial questions that weigh on family business directors. In this week’s post, we review these three questions and how they create a solid, sustainable base for family businesses.
Almost a year ago, we published a case study looking at the corporate break-up of the venerable Kellogg Company into two separate businesses: Kellanova (snack foods) and WK Kellogg (breakfast cereals). From the announcement through the present, Kellogg shareholders have earned an annualized total return of 11.2%, far outpacing the returns of peer publicly traded packaged foods companies. Last year’s post included five takeaways for family business directors. In this week’s post, we reiterate those original takeaways and add a sixth.
If private equity and family business had a relationship status on social media, it would undoubtedly be “It’s Complicated.” Even if they would rather not be connected, in 2025, what happens to private equity affects family businesses. In this week’s post, we look at several stories about developments in private equity and discuss direct and indirect implications for family businesses.
When it comes to investor sentiment, 2025 has been a tale of two very different quarters. During the first quarter of 2025, GDP decreased at an annualized rate of 0.2%, consumer spending only marginally increased, and the ongoing risk of recession grew. As we officially transition from the first half of the year to the second, investors hope to continue what has been a historic recovery over the last three months.
As emerging investor optimism for the rest of 2025 washes away the Q1 uncertainty and pessimism, in this week’s post we focus on two key questions related to growth, risk, and the meaning of the family business: investment decisions and distribution policy.
Selling a business is a three-step process. In reality, each of the phases overlaps to some degree, making the process more of a continuum than a finite set of procedures. A turnkey, orderly process typically requires four to six months. Ultimately, the collective team goal as a family business is to win the race, whether it be at the pace of the hare or the tortoise. In this week’s post, we take a deeper dive into those three phases and what that may look like for you and your family business when the time comes.
