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Who's In, Who's Out? The Case for Clear Rules

Published February 1, 1990 Gerald Le Van |

Too often, family businesses practice what I call birdcage management. Outside blood is rarely brought in to help the company grow or to tackle tough business problems.The same family members, with th...

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The Sweet Smell of Succession

Published February 1, 1990 Jack Nessel |

ESTéE LAUDER INC. was literally a mom-and-pop company when Leonard Lauder joined it in 1958, after graduating from the Wharton School and serving three years as a Navy officer. The company fou...

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New Policies for the 'Uninsurable'

Published February 1, 1990 Sam Radin |

When it comes to estate-tax planning, the health of a family business need not be tied to the health of the business owner. Often, the preferred way to fund those estate taxes, which start at 18 perc...

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Whose Company is this Anyway?

Published February 1, 1990 Kevin McManus |

"Don't get any fancy ideas about trying to make this a family company again." That's the sort of thing that an outside director really should not say to a proud descendant of the founder of a family ...

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Why Can't Family Life Be More Like a Business Lunch?

Published February 1, 1990 Kenneth Kaye |

One of my clients recently commented that almost a year had passed since she last saw her brother or father anywhere other than at the office. "We get along well at the company," she said, "but I thin...

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Power and Priorities

Published February 1, 1990 Carin Rubenstein |

HIGHLIGHTS   Although women comprise more than half of the American work force, they are under-represented in management of family businesses. Those who are involved often complain of sex d...

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Advice from a Smart Cookie

Published February 1, 1990 Chris Barnett |

The family owners want to stay in the business, but for a number of different reasons it makes sense to sell out. Maybe the founder wants to get his hands on his equity and start enjoying life a litt...

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Facing the Music in a Divorce

Published February 1, 1990 Janet Bamford |

With its trendy line of teen fashions, Esprit de Corp, the San Francisco-based company that Doug and Susie Tompkins founded 22 years ago, had been growing rapidly when their marriage hit the rocks. ...

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Why Willing A Trust Beats Trusting A Will

Published February 1, 1990 Michael G. Goldstein |

When Conrad Nicholson Hilton died at age 91 in 1978, his will ordained that his 28 percent stake in Hilton Hotels Corp., then worth about $125 million, should go to charity, not to his children. But l...

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They Know What They Like

Published January 30, 1989 Sandra Conn |

The art collections of large, public corporations aren't the only ones that stand out. Throughout America, family businesses of all sizes are amassing impressive collections of paintings, sculpture, ...

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The Family Track

Published January 30, 1989 Sandra Pesmen |

Fifty-seven-year-old Tom Carey sometimes stands at the window of his expansive, antique-filled office, looks down over the carefully manicured Hawthorne Race Course in Stickney, Illinois, festooned w...

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The Family Foundation Makes A Comeback

Published January 1, 1989 Roger M. Williams |

The Rockefeller, Mellon, and Mott families do it. So does former junk-bond dealer Michael Milken. And so does Stanley Lopata of St. Louis. Day to day, fathers and sons, daughters and cousins oversee ...

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The Emerging Muscle of Family Control

Published January 1, 1989 Peter Davis |

News of deep financial troubles at Wang Labs last summer touched off a wave of speculation over why the company, built by entrepreneur An Wang in the Sixties, lost its way in the Eighties. After the b...

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On Working in the Family Business

Published January 1, 1989 Carin Rubenstein |

HIGHLIGHTSCompared with the American work force generally, members of family businesses are a great deal more satisfied with the quality of their work lives. Almost all of our respondents are satisfie...

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A Checklist for Nonfamily Managers

Published January 1, 1989 Edwin T. Crego Jr. |

In the current era of frenzied acquisitions, merger mania, downsizing, and belt-tightening, today's disillusioned employees in large corporations are changing careers and companies four or five times ...

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Ruder Finn's Struggle with the N Word

Published January 1, 1989 Philip Perry |

David Finn never thought his children would want to go into the business he started in 1948 with his childhood friend, Bill Ruder. What's more, the 68-year-old executive always believed that nepotism...

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Masters of Disasters

Published January 1, 1989 Robert Charm |

IT WAS EASIER. Managing the business was so much easier last March when all hell broke loose. Up in Prince William Sound, in Alaska, the super-tanker Exxon Valdez smashed onto the rocks spreading 1...

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What's Two Hundred Years Old and Runs Like Clockwork?

Published January 1, 1989 Barbara B. Buchholz |

On October 2, 1727, young Christian BixIer set sail for America aboard The Adventure. He emigrated from his native Bern, Switzerland, via Rotterdam to Philadelphia in order to seek his fortune. When ...

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Parasites vs. Plunderers: A No-Win War

Published January 1, 1989 Gerald Le Van |

Whether Sallie Bingham was the heroine or the villain in the real-life family business melodrama of the year depends largely on one's point of view. As most of us know from the press reports of her s...

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Paying Fair

Published January 1, 1989 Kenneth Kaye |

ALAN CRANE purposely underpays his son, daughter, and nephew — but not because he is stingy. The founder of Chicago's Crane Carton Company, a box manufacturer with $25 million in annual sales, ...

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