- Family businesses are not more profitable, but they are much more crisis-resistant than large corporations
- The most important advantages are continuity in management and employee loyalty
- Specialisation as the classic recipe for the success of family-owned businesses
The classic family business is a successful model for the future and indeed the most promising model in the long term. This succinct formula sums up the tenor of a top-class expert discussion which was hosted by Leitbetriebe Austria together with Bank Gutmann. “Social conscience, orientation toward long-term goals, fairness towards employees, safeguarding jobs and locations and many other aspects, which society demands of enterprises now more than ever, are actually traditional characteristics and advantages of family businesses”, Monica Rintersbacher, Managing Director of Leitbetriebe Austria. It is therefore anything but a coincidence that family businesses are strongly represented among leading Austrian companies. “Family businesses play an indispensable role for society as a whole and large corporations often depend on them in the long term.”
An assessment that host Matthias Albert, member of the board of management and partner in Bank Gutmann, could fully agree with. A study conducted by Bank Gutmann together with international partners clearly demonstrated this: Thus, after the financial crisis, family-dominated listed companies outperformed the DAX by 10 percent and the S&P Index by 15 percent. “Family businesses are not more profitable in general, but they are clearly more stable in the crisis”, asserts Albert. “They cut fewer jobs, they return to former economic strength quicker and they are more financially stable. At any rate, investing in companies with families as permanent core shareholders is a very promising strategy.”
