Government ambitions to reindustrialise Britain risk being undermined unless ministers act on tax pressures, high energy costs and skills shortages facing the family-owned firms that form the backbone of UK manufacturing.

The mechanisms that enable a family enterprise to survive from one generation to the next are the same mechanisms that generate the highest costs — not to the business, but to the people inside it.

Family businesses enjoy a powerful reservoir of public trust, but many of their strengths -- and some of their biggest challenges -- remain largely invisible to people without firsthand experience inside them.

Succession can expose differences between the formal organisation and the way people actually work, particularly when influence moves through informal digital channels. T

We spend a lot of time worrying about whether the next generation is ready to take over a family business. But do we spend enough time thinking about whether the senior generation is ready to stop running it.?

Building wealth with a family business is only half the story. It’s also about how to protect it and pass it on.

A well-handled succession is one employees and customers barely notice. It feels less of a leap into the unknown and more like a natural next step.

Who will take over the business, when and how? These are the questions that keep family business owners awake at night.

Bank of Scotland Business Barometer paints an interesting picture of Scotland’s relationship with AI.

What if the infrastructure doesn't exist to answer it. Next-gen family members want visibility into how decisions get made. That request is entirely reasonable. What's missing is the layer that would make honouring it possible. The next generation is consistent about one thing. They want more communication. More transparency. More visibility into how decisions are made. This is not a cultural complaint. It is not ingratitude dressed up as governance feedback. The ask is legi

Bagnalls is a sixth generation family business, a national painting contractor managing commercial, industrial and highly decorative contracts throughout the UK. Two members of the fifth generation now work within the business. One is Stephen Bagnall, the Group Managing Director. The other is Ellie Jobes, the Group People Director. In addition, there are three members of the sixth generation working int the business too: Oliver Dyson is the Group Finance Director, Hermione B

For family business owners, divorce or the dissolution of a civil partnership is rarely just a personal matter. It can have far-reaching implications for the family, the business, employees, future succession plans and long-term wealth preservation.

Family business has always liked to think of itself as a meritocracy of blood and belonging. Ownership, involvement and eventually leadership are supposed to flow naturally through the generations. Yet for many women born into these enterprises, that flow has a well documented habit of stopping just short of the top job. The glass ceiling, a phrase coined for the corporate world, turns out to describe something distinctly familiar in the family business world too. What Do We

There is a particular kind of pressure that comes with inheriting a family business as a daughter. It is not the pressure of acquisition or ambition. It is something quieter, more complex, and considerably harder to talk about. It is the pressure of proximity: of taking over something that is not just a commercial enterprise but a life's work, a source of identity, and in many cases the thing that shaped your entire childhood, for someone who is still in the room. Most leader

Nearly a century of Lancashire cheesemaking, tested by fire and emerging stronger. On the evening of Monday, November 6, 2023, Matthew Hall was fast asleep when his mother began throwing stones at his bedroom window. Outside, the Lancashire night sky was lit not by stars, but by a blaze consuming Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses’ office and packing site in Longridge. "Mum told me there was a fire," he recalls. "That word can mean so much, can't it? You light your fire in your house;

Spanning nearly eight decades and three generations of the Wharton family, the story of Whartons Roses is one of determination, craft, and an enduring passion for the world's most beloved flower.

They may rarely make the headlines reserved for Germany's largest listed corporations, but the country's family firms remain, in every meaningful sense, the engine room of the German economy.

Family businesses have been the foundation of commerce for centuries, contributing significantly to economic growth and development.

For decades, family business owners across the UK could plan their succession around a simple assumption. Build the business, hold the shares, and pass them on at death largely free of inheritance tax. That assumption ended on 6 April 2026. The reform to Business Property Relief and Agricultural Property Relief has fundamentally altered the maths of succession. Qualifying business and agricultural assets now receive full relief only up to £2.5 million per individual, or £5 mi

One of the clearest patterns among leaders who step down successfully is that they begin investing in interests, relationships and activities outside the business well in advance.