Members of our FIC community and subscribers to The European Family Investment Company Report – FIC owners and family members – from eight countries met online last month for the latest EFIC Virtual Meeting.
We have just published our Meeting Notes and Takeaways.
Meeting agenda: ‘Living in Interesting Times’ – family enterprises doing business in a turbulent and challenging world
A panel of three family members from our FIC Community – a Chairman, CEO, and Supervisory Board member, ranging from the 2nd to the 9th generation – led the meeting.
Geopolitical issues identified by the panellists
The panellists spoke about their current geopolitical challenges and how they are responding, including: the Trump tariffs and how they are affecting US-based and non-US investee companies; the need for liquidity in uncertain times balanced against how to maintain it with the new tariffs and linked inflationary pressures; how reaction to crises needs to be driven by heart and emotions as well as brains to protect a family’s legacy, values and culture in the long-term; and how family enterprises and their employees can respond positively to a sense of living in ‘permacrisis.’
Topics debated by participants
After the panellist spoke, the meeting was thrown open to all participants, who debated subjects such as: the need to reassess the language used to describe matters such as sustainability under the new US Administration; family enterprises can take encouragement, pride and experience from how they survived past crises; potential future risk of holding various types of assets in the US; balancing the current degree of volatility which is not good for business against the potential that it will also produce opportunities.
☕ After the ‘formal’ Virtual Meeting closed we again invited attendees and panellists, our team for a Virtual Coffee in the Cyber Foyer, when we had a very open and wide-ranging discussion of family business and investment issues. ☕
Meeting Notes and Takeaways
Following the meeting we published and distributed a full note of all the main issues discussed in the meeting together with some practical Takeaways under headings such as resilience, diversification, liquidity and long-termism.
NOTE: to enquire how to receive the full text of the Meeting Notes and Takeaways from this EFIC Virtual Meeting or how to join our community of Family Investment Companies please email: info @ deanbridgeinternational.com