Death of a
family member is certainly more than a challenge. We have been
extremely lucky in our history, but we lost dad's wife and our
mother, our emotional leader, Laura Hollar, in 1977. We all
miss her.With her death came
some change in the ownership structure. This led to making a
plan for the transition of ownership. At least in the United
States, the loss of a founder can easily lead to the company
being sold to pay the tax. So, we diversified the ownership
even more.
A major challenge for us has been
finding the money with which to fund ownership transition,
research, capital expenditures, etc., all while keeping the
business in the family. Outsiders think that keeping a
business 'in the family' means that there is one owner: what
could be simpler? But in fact ownership does change and it is
taxed (or double taxed) when it does. This leads to slow
growth.
Families tend to grow at an
exponential rate, while businesses grow linearly at best. If
all members of the next generation of a business expect to
work for the business, and to enjoy the same lifestyle as
their parents, the business may well suffer.
