Our thirty-eighth update email tracks recent actions and news concerning European Family Investment Companies (FICs). This Edition features 20 FICs from Germany, Belgium, France, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, Singapore, Norway and Italy.
Responsibility is a major theme this month. We note several FICs who have stepped up to make donations and offer support for the victims of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. A FIC supports its employees with an extra payment to help them deal with the rising cost of living. And another supports the community near one of its long-standing factories in the US to help it preserve and revitalise historic downtown buildings.
Partnership is another theme. JVs are formed with a bank to make a new offering for ‘sustainable shipping’, a US asset manager to launch ‘co-living’ properties and with a specialist provider to develop solar projects in SE Asia. A FIC partners with an industrial to take a minority stake in a recycling business. Moving in the opposite direction, one FIC harvested the fruits of a long-standing partnership with another family by selling them their stake.
In other news, investments continue to be made, this month in tech, online and sustainable, and portfolio companies continue to grow by acquisition and by winning new contracts. FIC flexibility continues to be shown by one seeking to exit a business, one setting up a new platform to invest in a specialist food sector and another making an acquisition to form a new division.
More FICs post 2022 full-year results, which, while trying to be positive, continue to highlight the severe business headwinds – inflation, high interest rates, energy costs, currency volatility – that not only FICs but all businesses are facing.
Finally, a FIC Chairman is nominated to head the World Bank.
This News Briefing concludes with 14 practical Takeaways: Our interpretations of what the news means for family investment companies.
NOTE: EFIC News Briefing is sent to subscribers to The European Family Investment Company Report, members of our Advisory Network and selected others at our discretion. We are happy to answer any questions or discuss anything further. And do send us your comments, ideas and suggestions and any news stories you see.
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