Garment Family Enterprises Begin To "Successor Plan"

Whether the handover is successful or not is often the key factor determining the continuity and development direction of an enterprise. However, problems such as future generations unwilling to take over or inability to take over are troubling the first generation of entrepreneurs. How to get out of this "bureau" may be an equation with no unique answer.

In 2010, Li Rucheng, founder and chairman of YOUNGOR group, was 59 years old, and still had a year from its repeated retirement age of 60. Li Rucheng regarded the present as YOUNGOR's "key turning point". He started working on the "successor plan". However, the clothing giant encountered an unprecedented problem because Youngor Shares are very scattered, even though he is the founder of less than 8.5% of the shares. This allows him neither to be appointed by the state like a state-owned enterprise, nor to appoint his next generation to succeed as a pure family enterprise.

As for the succession problem, Li Rucheng considered the long term. "In my generation, the significance of stock ownership is not great, but it will have a great impact on the next generation." Li Rucheng even thought of the worst plan to sell the business.

Worries about "no one after another"

Like Li Rucheng, Lin Congying, chairman of the nine herd king, has been troubled by the "family industry heritage". The ideal retirement time he set himself was 58 years old, exactly the 40 year of King nine. "I have to spare more time for myself when I am in a healthy state. I will go to places where I do not want to go when I retire." Lin Congying thus conceived his future.

But what made him headache was that four of his children, three of whom studied in the United States, studied in England, and studied economics, finance, accounting and so on. "They were so tired when I was young, they felt scared and felt very tired." Lin Congying said he could not force his children to do what they did not want to do because he feared that he would bring the king of nine to an unknown future. In his family, he could not find a man with enough ability to inherit his hard work. "The possibility of 80% of the king's future is to be taken care of by professional managers. Of course, I do not rule out that I will sell it or merge with others." Lin Congying said.

"Forest type" worries are small and medium-sized in China. clothing It is quite common in enterprises, especially those clothing enterprises whose assets are still less than one hundred million, and their parents are still struggling for the survival of enterprises.

"When I chat with many bosses of garment enterprises in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, I often hear their complaints that their children are totally not interested in their clothing business, and that they think their life is getting gloomy when they think that their hard working enterprises are no longer taking over." Li Guangdou, a famous brand expert, told reporters that because their parents had accumulated some wealth, their children mostly lived a superior life from their childhood. The rich two generation could not understand nor understand why their parents had to work so hard. They looked down from their hearts on the wealth accumulation pattern that their parents could only earn from their manufacturing factories. They even yearned for the "big money" and "free and casual" jobs such as stocks, investments and creativity.

The concept of "the two generation" is also a universal problem. In the global garment industry, tens of thousands of family businesses are forced to sell every year because their descendants are unwilling to take over. A typical example is ESPRIT, which was founded by SusieRussel and her ex husband DouglasTompkins in San Francisco, USA. In 1989, the Russel couple divorced because of their feelings. And their children did not intend to inherit their parents' clothing business. In their words, "think of thousands of identical trousers and blouses, they are going to go mad." They wanted to create something unique from childhood. Xing Li, a Hongkong native who opened a garment factory, took the opportunity to buy his ESPRIT stake from DouglasTompkins. He used the money earned from selling ESPRIT clothes to rank among the top rich in Hongkong and married Brigitte Lin as his wife.

Successors select problems

At the age of 60, it is the "retirement" time that many clothing business owners envisage. But a very real problem is that business bosses are very busy with all kinds of events in the operation process before they are 60 years old, so it is hard to find time to plan succession problems. When the time comes, they will start to rush around, which often leads to a series of problems.

Passing the industry on to children is the most common way of thinking for Chinese people. But the question is, to whom is the larger family with more children? How much wealth? But it's a tricky problem.

A female boss of a clothing company who did not want to be named told reporters that she is now fifty-three years old. She thought of giving the factory to his eldest son for a few years. But now the two son began to make trouble with her. The two son did not want to work in the factory. He wanted to run a IT company, but he wanted to split half of the shares from her brother. Thinking of these things, the female boss was very worried. What she fears most is that the two sons' frustrating will cause her hard work to fall apart. {page_break}

The woman boss's worries are not unreasonable. In the history of clothing development, the struggle for heritage often leads to the collapse of a family business. The international luxury goods Gucci is a typical example. This high-end brand, founded in 1920, was introduced into the company's management by its founder, GuccioGucci, who was unable to get rid of his narrow family mentality. After his death, a huge battle for the heritage began, brothers disabled and tax evasion. The family struggle intensified from one scene to another. By the 1994, the Gucci family had been in a dilemma due to poor management and was on the verge of bankruptcy. These scandals reached the limit in 1998: MaurizioGucci, the last male heir to the Gucci family, was murdered by his ex-wife. If not "outsider" Tom Forde was appointed as the creative director to take the lead in Gucci, the clothing brand that has absolute voice in the world's top fashion area has long been obliterated in the long history.

Therefore, in the face of handover, many clothing bosses will be very cautious and fail to make the family business die out because of rivals' competition or external economic difficulties.

The "two generation rich" culture is puzzled.

On the one hand, the first generation of business owners are worried about their descendants' unwilling to inherit their family businesses. On the other hand, it is widely questioned by the society about whether the rich two generation have this ability.

When the boss of Busen group Shou Cai Feng announced that she had taken over the business to her two sons, she encountered resistance from many aspects. There are feelings and discontent with her, but on the other hand, there are worries about whether the two young sons can shoulder heavy responsibilities.

Can you safely give your children the hardships that you have fought all your life? This is perhaps the common concern of many private entrepreneurs.

In the past history of global wealth migration, the worst outcome has never been avoided. Scholars studying the history of family businesses have found that at least 80% of the family businesses in the family businesses that transfer wealth to the next generation end up in the second generation, and only 13% of the family businesses succeed in the third generation.

Therefore, how to train our offspring to become a qualified successor has become a difficult problem facing the bosses of clothing enterprises. Sending his son to study abroad and coming back to take over the family industry is an option for cultivating successors. For example, Gao Min of Han Po, Xu Zhihua of PEAK and so on, all of them returned from abroad to become successors in a logical way. They have a characteristic of broad thinking and relatively new knowledge structure. They may be more innovative in their business philosophy than their fathers. Another way of training that is recognized by the boss is to wait until after the son has graduated from University, so that they can start from the grass-roots of the family business, then climb up step by step, no difference from other employees, but the final destination. The fact is that if business owners can put the heir plan on the agenda early, they will be much more successful in the shift.

However, despite the painstaking efforts of their fathers, there will still be "two generation" who may not be able to become a black sheep. In the context of family business owners' eyes firmly attached to the consanguineous relatives, the inheritance of family industry has always been a difficult problem.