Welcome note

Volume 09 Issue 04 | 2020

Keeping it professional

Growing a family business is tricky.

Owners want to keep the ownership within the family but they also must delegate to external talent to bring in skills the family members don’t possess.

This edition dives into the theme. Our cover profile Anthea Hammon (pg. 16), the third generation of the family that owns Scenic World in the Blue Mountains, shares her experience in succession and governance.

Anthea’s grandfather refused to retire, never took distributions out of the business, and eventually left a murky will.

Her father looked to it as a lesson and gave Anthea and David much more freedom in the business.

They in turn did their part, finding their retiring father hobbies and making sure he got a good farewell party.

In a few decades the family will rinse and repeat, with succession to the fourth generation.

Conversations with family can be challenging, she says. And so they bring an emotional facilitator to family meetings.

Speaking of hard conversations, we round up consulting minds (pg. 14) to put together a starter guide for family-owned businesses looking to scale up.

Their collective advice? Ditch the suburban accountant, have clean reporting lines for staff and don’t be afraid to give external talent shares (you can still keep the voting rights!).

In other people who share their knowledge with our readers in this edition is Koda Capital’s David Knowles.

In an entertaining read, Knowles points out four mistakes philanthropists make (pg. 34). As a teaser, he warns philanthropists to stay away from sunscreen philanthropy, teenage philanthropy, zombie philanthropy and drone philanthropy.

Lastly, this note wouldn’t be complete without the pandemic. The year is over but the pandemic is not.

Conversations with family can be challenging.

The pandemic has taught us how to adapt and innovate in ways we could not have imagined otherwise.

Thank you for supporting this journal and we look forward to bringing you the latest in private wealth trends and investment research in 2021 and beyond. fs

Christopher Page

managing director, Financial Standard