Creating a sustainable family business: Roles and responsibilities

The first in our series of family business webinars ‘Creating a sustainable family business’, hosted by Silvia Vitiello and Yvette Jacobs-Lee from Moore Kingston Smith, and Andrew Bloom from our business and corporate legal team, focused on roles and responsibilities within a family business. It looks at finding the right balance between personal aspirations of the family and team, with commercial decisions for the business.

The key take away points from the webinar include:

• Ensure there is clarity for the roles within the family business and how they operate together. This puts a safety measure in place to make sure family members understand, and expectations are set at realistic levels helping to avoid disagreements and disaffection within the family.
• Implementing a family charter provides a structure that underpins the plans and operation of both the business and the interaction with the family’s aspirations.
  The process of actually creating the family charter is just as valuable as the charter that is produced; providing a forum for ideas, questions and plans to be discussed, agreed, and recorded in a straightforward and structured manner.
• Seek professional advice to decide how family members with different roles might extract cash from the business in a tax efficient way.
• Consider the timing for passing shares to the next generation and ensure you maximise the available tax reliefs.
• Ensure correct legal documents are in place, so that everyone knows their rights and responsibilities – this will help to avoid disputes, especially if circumstances change at any point.
• Having the right legal documentation in place can help control what could happen if someone decides to exit the business or some want to sell, but others do not.

We have decades of experience in the above areas mentioned, as well as every other aspect of running and growing a family business in the short-term and the far-off. To learn more about our tailored solutions, and how we can help you, please contact our team.