Le family businesses they are not just those “next door”. Large international conglomerates are also considered family companies, with a turnover of billions and thousands of employees spread throughout the world but whose ownership is mainly attributable to a family.
Alphabet (Google), Facebook, Alibaba, LVMH (the luxury giant that controls Louis Vuitton and Chanel), Alibaba, Kering, even Ikea. They are all companies that have 20% of the capital controlled by a family or by those who created them. Names of the caliber of Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Bernard Arnauld, Francois Henri Pinault.
In Italy the easiest example to think of is undoubtedly Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the company symbol of the industrialization of the country, which has Exor as its first shareholder, that is the Agnelli family. But FCA is not the only "family company" in our country capable of attracting the attention of the markets and, above all, of investors.
THE CREDIT SUISSE FIRM
Credit Suisse made a study – “The Credit Suisse Family 1000 in 2018″ – which reveals how the so-called family companies on the Stock Exchange do much better than the others, outperforming equity markets in every geographic area and in every sector of expertise.
Family businesses appear to underperform non-family businesses during periods of improving economic conditions or sentiment. Nonetheless, in a long-term perspective, family businesses are generating higher revenue growth in all geographies and higher levels of profitability, which in turn support the strong relative appreciation of share prices since 2006.
What are the reasons behind this trend? A fundamental role is played, CS writes, by “the conservative and longer-term approach highlighted by family businesses” which tend to rely less on external financing and better withstand the pressure of quarterly data.
The research analyzes 1000 family-owned companies listed on the Stock Exchange by comparing their stock market performance with those of 7000 non-family-owned companies over three different time horizons: 3, 5 and 10 years. Well, the study shows that the former register stronger revenue and ebitda growth, with higher margins and higher cash flow returns.
Clear results not only among large US companies, but also in Europe, where since 2006 family businesses have beaten "their rivals" by 476 basis points.
THE BEST ITALIAN FAMILY COMPANIES
In Italy, in the last 10 years, 9 family businesses have beaten non-family businesses in terms of profitability and revenue growth.
Saving the European ranking drawn up by Credit Suisse on the basis of total shareholder return, i.e. performance on the Stock Exchange plus dividends paid, in fifth place - first among the Italian companies - we find Amplifon which in the last 3-5 and 10 years is the Italian company that has given the greatest satisfaction to shareholders with percentages of +40%, +28% and +16% respectively.
In second place among the Italians (eighth in Europe) it is placed instead Recordati (+27%, +27%, +15%). Closes the podium Ima (14th in Europe) with percentages of +16% in 3 years, +26% in 5, +16% in 10.
They follow in fourth and fifth place Brembo (18th) and Datalogic (20th), while at the sixth we find "the biggest": fca (24th). Seventh place for Erg (25th), eighth for Interpump (27th). Closes the small ranking of the best Italian family companies for total shareholder return campari, 28th in Europe and XNUMXth in Italy.
Putting FCA aside, it is difficult not to notice how the Italian companies mentioned above represent the flower of the Fourth Capitalism, medium-sized independent companies, which since the mid-XNUMXs have consolidated their role in the country, at the same time strengthening their competitive capacity on international markets. Companies that well exemplify the Italian productive reality. Suffice it to say that they represent about a quarter of national manufacturing.
On a general level, in the last 10 years, Italian companies controlled by families have recorded better stock market performances than their "rivals", registering a +26% against the -19% of the Stock Exchange.
In Europe the percentages are even higher: +90% in 5 years, +149% in 10 against a Eurostoxx which marks +28 and +22 per cent in the same time horizons.
