The Munnelly Group has announced the appointment of Matt Duck to the position of Group Board Director – People & Culture, in a move which will see him lead the company’s People and Culture function across all eight of its brands. Taking ‘People’ and ‘Culture’ out of the standard HR function and giving it a specific Board directive is a strategic move from the Munnelly Group as part of its long-term growth framework, ‘Target 2030’. An experienced HR professional, Matt has worked within senior leadership roles for the last 25 years and will play an integral role in strengthening the Munnelly Group’s people and culture function even further, with part of his remit to embed the ‘One Group, One Mission, One Standard’ value across the Group. Having initially joined the company in a consultancy role, Matt was officially named Group Director of HR on a full-time basis in 2023. During his time in this role, he developed a high-performing HR team and was responsible for relaunching the reward and recognition strategy, enhancing the management of employee relations streams and delivering a suite of leadership workshops. Matt, who has experience working across numerous sectors, including construction, retail and financial services, before joining the Munnelly Group, will now oversee HR operations at the Group’s eight specialist trading businesses – Munnelly Support Services, Guardior, MacRail, Bishopsgate Group, City Calling, Weston Analytics, Bridgehead Consultancy and Severn Partnership. Paul David Munnelly, CEO of the Munnelly Group, said: “Matt’s appointment to the Munnelly Group Board reflects the high level of importance that we have placed on our People and Culture functions across the Group as part of our long-term, strategic planning process." "This new role will enable us to drive forward with confidence as we continue to grow the business through investment in our people and exemplary culture to promote our core values of trust, collaboration and innovation.” Commenting on his appointment to the Munnelly Group Board, Matt added: “I am extremely honoured and delighted to be the new Group Board Director – People & Culture. This is a pivotal time for everyone connected with the business as the people and culture function prepares to deliver a journey of growth across the Group." "My aim is to build on the work that has already been put in place and to continue to make Munnelly Group a proud, people-centric organisation, where further enhanced leadership capabilities are developed to bring out the best in every employee here so we can all achieve together."

Family Business United is delighted to announce the launch of the Family Business Apprentice Employers Report 2026, the UK's only annual report dedicated to understanding the role that family businesses play in employing and developing apprentices. As the backbone of the UK economy, family firms have a long-standing reputation for investing in people, developing talent and creating opportunities across generations. Apprenticeships remain a vital part of that commitment, helping businesses address skills shortages while providing rewarding career pathways for people of all ages. To build the most comprehensive picture possible, Family Business United is inviting family-owned businesses from across the UK to submit information on the number of apprentices they employed as at 30 June 2026. The report, now an established annual benchmark, celebrates the contribution family firms make to apprenticeship employment and highlights examples of best practice from businesses of every size and sector. Why Take Part? By contributing your data, your business will help: Showcase the significant contribution family businesses make to apprenticeship employment across the UK. Demonstrate the sector's commitment to developing future talent. Inform policymakers, educators and business leaders about the impact of family firms on skills development. Highlight inspiring stories of apprentices succeeding within family businesses. Create valuable benchmarking data for the family business community. Participation is free, and individual business data will only be used in accordance with the reporting methodology. What Information is Required? We are asking family businesses to provide: Company name Industry sector Number of UK employees Number of apprentices employed as at 30 June 2026 Number of new apprentices during the year and the number completing their apprenticeship this year Optional case studies or apprentice success stories Building a Stronger Picture Together Family businesses have always understood the importance of investing in future generations. Whether employing one apprentice or hundreds, every contribution helps create a clearer picture of the enormous impact family firms have on skills, employment and local communities. The findings from the Family Business Apprentice Employers Report 2026 will be published later this year and will provide valuable insight into apprenticeship employment across the UK's family business sector. Submit Your Data Family businesses wishing to be included are encouraged to submit their information as soon as possible with data as of June 30 using the form below. Together, we can celebrate the family firms investing in tomorrow's workforce and demonstrate the vital role family businesses continue to play in developing skills across the UK.

One of Cumbria’s leading independent accountancy firms, Lamont Pridmore, is urging small and medium-sized businesses across Cumbria and the North West and beyond to take a closer look at finances beyond the summer. Whilst the schools will soon break up for holidays, for many businesses in the region, Summer is a period of relative hustle and bustle, rather than relaxation, as visitors flock to the region. Even those not linked to the region’s tourism and leisure industry can see busier months in the summer as they support the local economy or take advantage of the good weather. Lamont Pridmore says that businesses shouldn’t take this period for granted and must prepare for seasonal trade slowdowns, delayed payments from clients taking annual leave, payroll complications from temporary staff, and depleted cash reserves as the rush comes to an end. Success isn’t shared across industries either, and for some, the summer can be a period of additional pressure as staff take time off or other businesses wind down. Chris Lamont, Group Managing Director and Partner at Lamont Pridmore, said: "We speak to business owners throughout the year who are confused about why they feel under pressure during summer when their accounts look healthy. The honest answer is that profitability and cashflow are two very different things and summer has a particular habit of exposing that gap." The pressures vary by sector, but the pattern is familiar across many parts of the economy. In hospitality, a surge in footfall can mask the fact that suppliers still expect payment within agreed terms, while staff costs rise sharply as operators take on seasonal workers to cope with demand. In construction, longer days and dry weather should in theory mean more productive sites, but project delays, stretched payment chains and holiday leave among both client contacts and site staff frequently disrupt cashflow timing. What these sectors share is a mismatch between when money is earned and when it needs to be paid out. Summer can intensify that mismatch in ways that many businesses do not fully anticipate or lead to a period of confidence followed by a period of relative inactivity. Late payment is a persistent problem for SMEs at any time of year, but summer can make it worse, as decision-makers go on holiday or accounts teams run on reduced cover. A new study by accountancy technology developer Sage released this month showed that nearly half of all SME invoices were overdue (49 per cent) in the first quarter of 2026. For a business carrying overhead through July and August, even a two-week delay across several clients can tighten cashflow significantly. "We always encourage clients to take a proactive approach to credit control throughout the summer," said Chris. "As things get busier, it is easy to overlook but chasing payment before your contacts disappear for two weeks is not aggressive, it is prudent." “The businesses that come through summer in good shape tend to be the ones who have done the groundwork in June." The firms that navigate summer with the least disruption are typically those that treat cashflow as an active management exercise rather than something to review after the event. They use the busier months to build resilience by building consistent habits, such as maintaining a cash buffer that reflects the seasonal rhythm of the business rather than a standard one-size figure, reviewing debtor days regularly and acting early when they start to stretch; having a clear picture of fixed costs across the summer period and communicating openly with their adviser when they anticipate a squeeze rather than waiting until it has arrived. "There is no shame in finding summer difficult, even if it feels like you should be enjoying it," said Chris. "Some very well-run businesses have genuinely tough months. What we try to help clients do is see it coming, plan for it and have the right conversations early enough that the options are still open."

Recent government announcements highlight a clear shift in the UK’s innovation landscape. Decision-making is becoming more regional, AI infrastructure is expanding rapidly, and the UK is strengthening its position as a global hub for research and talent. A move towards regional funding Greater control over innovation funding is being devolved to regional leaders through the Local Innovation Partnerships Fund, enabling investment decisions to better reflect local strengths and growth priorities. For businesses, this means opportunities are increasingly aligned to regional strategies, making local engagement and strong local partnerships more important than ever. AI infrastructure creating new opportunities Government investment in the AI Research Resource (AIRR) is making it much easier to access advanced computing. It is also opening new application opportunities where projects can apply to use large-scale GPU computing power for AI work. While this does not provide direct funding, it offers access to scarce compute resources that are often a critical barrier to innovation, particularly for SMEs and scale-ups developing AI-driven solutions. Strengthening talent and global collaboration The UK continues to attract international researchers and strengthen its position within Horizon Europe, reinforcing its role as a leading global innovation centre. At the same time, expanded visa routes for R&D-intensive businesses are improving access to the talent needed to drive growth. What this means for businesses Innovation support is becoming more targeted and competitive. Success will increasingly depend on: aligning with regional priorities demonstrating clear commercial impact building strong partnerships navigating funding and compliance requirements effectively These developments reflect familiar challenges for early-stage and high-growth businesses, from securing the right funding to scaling effectively in an increasingly complex innovation landscape. At James Cowper Kreston, we support businesses at every stage of their lifecycle, helping them align with the right opportunities and maximise their potential. The opportunity is significant, but success will require a more strategic and locally aligned approach. Businesses that position themselves within both regional priorities and national programmes will be best placed to benefit. If you would like to explore how these developments could apply to your business, please get in touch with our team at James Cowper Kreston.

Every family business runs on two systems at once. There is the business itself, with its customers, its numbers and its decisions, and there is the family behind it, with its history, its loyalties and its unspoken expectations. The thread connecting both is conversation. When it flows freely, the business and the family tend to move in step. When it dries up, problems that could have been solved with a single honest discussion are left to grow quietly in the background, usually for years, until they surface at the worst possible moment. It sounds almost too simple to matter. Surely a family that already knows each other so well does not need reminding to talk. Yet familiarity is often exactly the problem. Long standing relationships carry assumptions that go unchecked for decades. A son assumes his father knows he wants more responsibility. A father assumes his daughter would say if she wanted out. Neither says anything, and both carry on operating on information that was true ten years ago and has not been tested since. Two Conversations, Not One Inside any family business there are really two conversations running in parallel: the family conversation and the business conversation. They overlap, but they are not the same thing, and conflating them is one of the most common sources of friction. A disagreement about a strategic decision can quickly become a disagreement about who loves whom, or who was always the favourite, simply because nobody paused to separate the business question from the family undercurrent running beneath it. Families that handle this well tend to be deliberate about where each conversation happens. Business matters get business settings, whether that is a formal board meeting or a scheduled catch up, while family matters get their own space, away from spreadsheets and deadlines. This separation does not stop the two worlds influencing each other; nothing fully achieves that in a family enterprise. What it does is give people permission to say, this is the business hat talking, not the son talking, which makes difficult points far easier to raise and to hear. Where Communication Breaks Down Three patterns tend to recur. The first is avoidance, where uncomfortable subjects such as succession, retirement or underperformance are quietly parked rather than raised, often for years at a time. The second is communication that only flows one way, typically downward from the founder or senior generation, leaving younger family members or non family managers feeling informed rather than consulted. The third is the absence of any forum at all, so that important conversations only happen by accident, in a corridor or over a hurried phone call, rather than by design. None of these patterns tends to announce itself as a crisis. They build slowly. A founder who has always made the big calls alone may not notice that his children have stopped offering opinions because they assume those opinions will not change anything. A management team may not realise that a long serving employee feels excluded from family discussions about the firm's direction until that employee hands in their notice. The damage caused by silence is rarely visible until it has already been done. What Good Communication Looks Like in Practice The families who get this right do not necessarily talk more than everyone else. They talk more intentionally. They build regular, predictable opportunities for conversation rather than waiting for problems to force the issue. Some hold structured family meetings, separate from the board, where non business matters such as expectations, values and individual ambitions can be aired without commercial pressure in the room. Others use an independent adviser or non executive director to chair difficult discussions, lending a degree of neutrality that family members struggling with their own history may struggle to provide for each other. Crucially, these families also work at listening, not just speaking. Genuine listening means allowing a relative or colleague to finish a difficult point without immediately defending a position, and being willing to sit with disagreement rather than rushing to smooth it over. It is uncomfortable, particularly across generations where communication styles may differ sharply, but it is also where trust is actually built. The Generational Dimension Each generation tends to bring its own communication habits into the business, and clashes are common. An older generation accustomed to making decisions quietly and announcing them later can find a younger generation's appetite for consultation frustrating, even disrespectful. A younger generation raised on constant digital contact can find a senior leader's preference for face to face, infrequent conversation old fashioned or even evasive. Neither approach is wrong. The risk is in assuming the other side's style reflects bad intent rather than a different upbringing or era. Bridging this gap usually requires both sides to make some accommodation: senior leaders sharing reasoning more openly and earlier, and younger family members accepting that some decisions will still be made with less consultation than they would prefer, at least until trust has been demonstrated over time. A Few Questions Worth Asking When did the family last discuss the business outside of a crisis? Is there a difference between what is said in family settings and what is said in business settings, and is that difference helping or hiding something? Do younger or non family members feel they can raise concerns without it affecting how they are seen? Is there a regular, protected space for conversations that are not about today's operational pressures? Would everyone in the family describe communication in the business the same way, or would the answers differ sharply by generation? The Bottom Line Family businesses do not fail because the family stops caring. They more often falter because conversations that should have happened did not, or happened too late, or happened in the wrong setting. Building deliberate habits of communication, separating the family conversation from the business conversation, and making space for genuine listening across generations will not remove every tension a family enterprise faces. It will, however, ensure that tensions are dealt with while they are still small, rather than left to harden into the kind of silence that no amount of commercial success can fully repair.

There comes a point in the life of many family businesses when the rules that have always lived in people's heads need to be written down. For years, perhaps decades, the family has operated on shared understanding: who gets a say, how disputes are settled, what happens when someone wants to join the business or leave it. That understanding worked while the family was small and the founder was firmly in charge. It tends to work far less well once the family has grown, the business has matured, and several generations are all trying to operate from memory rather than from anything agreed in common. A family constitution is the answer many families eventually reach for, though the document itself is only ever the end point of a much longer journey. Why Families Start the Process Most families do not begin drafting a constitution because everything is going wrong. More often the trigger is a moment of change: a founder approaching retirement, a new generation entering the business in greater numbers, an unexpected family dispute that revealed just how little had actually been agreed, or simply the recognition that the family has grown too large for informal conversation to carry all the weight it once did. Whatever the trigger, the underlying motivation is usually the same. The family wants to protect both the business and the relationships that surround it, and senses that clarity, written down and agreed by everyone, will serve both better than assumption ever could. The Journey Itself Drafting a constitution is rarely a quick task, and families who treat it as one tend to produce documents that sit unused in a drawer. The process usually begins with individual conversations, often facilitated by an adviser outside the family, in which each member is asked what matters most to them: fairness, opportunity, security, recognition, independence. These early conversations matter enormously, because they surface differences of view before drafting begins rather than during it, when positions can harden quickly. From there, families typically move into group sessions where shared values are discussed openly, sometimes for the first time in any structured way. This stage can be uncomfortable. Long held grievances or quiet resentments sometimes surface, and a skilled facilitator is often needed to keep the conversation constructive rather than letting old wounds dominate. Done well, though, this stage is where trust is rebuilt rather than simply documented, and many families say it is the most valuable part of the entire process, regardless of what ends up on the page. Only once values and priorities have been discussed does actual drafting begin, usually moving through several rounds of review as wording is tested against real scenarios. A good constitution is shaped by asking what would happen if a particular situation arose, rather than written in the abstract, and that testing process often takes as long as the original drafting itself. Key Topics a Constitution Usually Covers While every family's document looks different, certain themes appear again and again. Family employment policy is almost always addressed: what qualifications or experience a family member needs before joining the business, whether outside work experience is required first, and how performance will be reviewed once they are inside. Ownership and shareholding come next, covering how shares are held, whether they can be sold outside the family, and how a member wishing to exit can be bought out fairly. Governance is another central theme, setting out the roles of the board, the family council and any family assembly, along with how decisions are actually made and who has a vote on what. Succession is addressed directly rather than left to instinct, including how a future leader will be chosen and over what timeframe. Many constitutions also cover dividend policy, balancing the family's need for income against the business's need to reinvest, and conflict resolution, agreeing in advance how disagreements will be handled so that disputes do not default to whoever shouts loudest or holds the most shares. Increasingly, constitutions also address values beyond pure governance: the family's attitude to philanthropy, sustainability, or the role spouses and in laws play in family discussions, recognising that the human side of the business deserves the same clarity as the financial side. The Benefits That Follow Families who complete the process consistently report benefits that go well beyond the document itself. Decisions that might once have triggered conflict, such as who is permitted to join the business or how a departing member is bought out, become procedural rather than personal, because the answer was agreed calmly in advance rather than argued over in the moment. Younger generations often report feeling more secure, since expectations are clear rather than guessed at, and that clarity tends to reduce the kind of resentment that builds when rules appear to shift depending on who is asking. The business itself usually benefits too, since professional managers and outside investors generally view a documented governance structure as a sign of maturity, which can make the business easier to finance, easier to sell, and easier to hand on. Perhaps the most underrated benefit is simply the conversation itself. Even families who never finish a formal document often say the process of discussing these questions together changed how they communicate, long before any wording was finalised. A Checklist of Questions Worth Considering Has every adult family member, including those not currently working in the business, had a genuine opportunity to contribute their views? What qualifications or experience, if any, should be required before a family member can join the business? How will ownership be structured, and what happens if a family member wants to sell their shares? Who actually has decision making authority, and over which decisions specifically? How will succession to leadership be decided, and on what timeline? What is the family's policy on dividends versus reinvestment, and is everyone in genuine agreement? How will disagreements be resolved when they arise, rather than if? Does the document reflect the family's actual values, or simply what was easiest to agree? Has the constitution been reviewed by an adviser experienced in family business governance? Is there a plan to revisit and update the constitution as the family and business evolve? A family constitution is not a single document so much as the record of a conversation a family has chosen to have properly, rather than by accident. The real value lies less in the rules it sets out and more in the process that produced them: the listening, the disagreement, the compromise, and ultimately the shared understanding that follows. Families who treat the journey with the seriousness it deserves tend to find that the constitution becomes a living reference point for decades to come, not a document gathering dust, but a foundation that lets both the family and the business move forward with far greater confidence than memory and assumption ever could provide.

Twenty-five years ago, in Singapore, I bought a Gucci canvas cross-body bag with money saved from overtime. It was a modest indulgence, earned through hard work, from a brand I knew was considered good. That bag has travelled to work and on holidays, and remains a favourite to this day, mainly for it’s appropriate size. Then came Sara Gay Forden's The House of Gucci, and the bag in my cupboard quietly changed its meaning. All at once it felt invaluable, a small piece of a history far larger and far sadder than one could have imagined. The history of Gucci is a tragedy of a very particular kind, the kind that should make every business family stop and think. On the morning of 27 March 1995, a well-dressed man climbed the steps of a building on Via Palestro in Milan and was shot three times in the back and once in the head. He was Maurizio Gucci, forty-six years old, the last of his family to lead the house that carried his name. The man who fired the gun had been hired for the job. The woman who arranged it, as the courts would later establish, was Patrizia Reggiani, Maurizio's former wife and the mother of his two daughters. She had once been the fiercest champion of his rise. In 1998 she was convicted and sentenced to twenty-nine years. The Italian press called her the “Black Widow”. And yet the murder is not what lingers once the book is closed. What lingers is something quieter and far heavier. The brand survives today. It thrives. It is worth billions. Only, the family that created it doesn’t own it. Three generations built the house, and the third generation lost it. By the time the assassin arrived on Via Palestro, the company had already slipped out of Gucci hands. Forden tells the story of one family. The lessons belong to every family that owns a business. There is an old saying that every business family secretly dreads, shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. The Gucci saga is perhaps the most beautifully dressed proof that the saying is real. It is a pattern that repeats across families, across centuries, across continents. A pattern, unlike a curse, can be understood and broken, if only we are willing to study how it forms. Why Most Dynasties Fade By The Third Generation Research across the world shows that only about a third of family businesses make it into the second generation, and barely one in ten survives into the third. Those numbers frighten every founder who reads them. They are not, however, handed down by fate. Family firms seldom die because the world has stopped wanting what they make. Customers were still queuing outside Gucci's Fifth Avenue stores even while the family was tearing itself apart in the courts. One observer noticed something telling, that the more sensational the headlines grew, the more shoppers walked in to buy. Family firms often die or family loses control of the firm because the family loses the ability to own itself and to govern itself. John Ward, who did as much as anyone to build the modern study of family business, argued that the long life of a family firm is a matter of discipline. Families that endure plan their succession early, while there is still time to do it gracefully. They keep the roles of family, owner and manager from blurring into one. They put their governance in place during the years of calm, long before any storm arrives. Forden's book is, in effect, a long record of what happens when a gifted family does none of this. Read as a warning, it becomes one of the finest masterclasses imaginable in how to destroy a dynasty. So let us turn it the other way around, and read each act of ruin as a lesson in how to keep one alive. First, The Rise, Because Every Fall Begins With A Gift Guccio Gucci opened his house in Florence in 1921, a small leather-goods shop on a quiet street. The origin story has since become legend. As a young man he had worked as a porter and lift-boy at the Savoy Hotel in London, where he watched the monogrammed luggage of the wealthy pass through the lobby and resolved to make something just as fine for his own countrymen. He did exactly that. His craftsmanship in saddlery and luggage became the family's first and finest inheritance. In time he brought his sons into the firm, and after the war he divided the company among three of them, Aldo, Vasco and Rodolfo. Here was familiness in its purest form, that special bundle of strengths a family brings to its firm when shared identity, trust and complementary talent come together into something no outsider can copy. Aldo was the engine. A marketing genius, he carried Gucci across the Atlantic and built a glittering empire that reached across America, Europe and Asia. He understood, better than anyone else in the family, that people did not buy a Gucci bag for the leather. They bought it for the feeling of carrying it. He pushed the family into perfume and into watches over his brothers' objections. And he gave them the image that should have become their constitution. “My family is the train”, he liked to say. “I am the engine. Without the train the engine is nothing, and without the engine the train does not move.” It is a lovely picture of how much they needed one another. The sorrow of the story is that the train forgot that it needed an engine. Lesson One: The Trap Of Dividing Ownership Equally When Vasco died of cancer in 1974, leaving no children, Aldo and Rodolfo bought out his widow's stake and emerged as equal partners, fifty per cent each. On paper it looked like elegant symmetry. In practice it laid down a fault line that ran through everything that followed. The two halves were identical in size. Behind them lay contributions that were perceived very differently. Aldo had built the American business and much of the global one. Rodolfo, a former actor, had put in far less according to Aldo’s family, and he held precisely the same half. Aldo felt the imbalance keenly. Quietly, he began to steer profits into the perfume company, where he and his sons held the larger share, so that Rodolfo saw only a thin slice of the returns. Resentment crept in from every side. Rodolfo blamed Aldo's restless expansion for the thin profits. Aldo's sons seethed that their uncle drew an equal half from an empire their father had built. Everyone felt cheated. No one felt heard. This is one of the oldest traps in family business, and one of the most misread. Equal and fair are two very different things. When a passive owner holds the same stake as the one who creates the value, the paperwork may call it just while every family dinner says otherwise. Scholars of socioemotional wealth remind us that families guard much more than money. They guard their pride, and their sense of having mattered. Wound that, and no dividend will ever heal it. The Guccis never built any way to revisit who owned what, and why. In Forden's telling, that frozen fifty-fifty shaped all that came after. Lesson Two: A Next Generation With Ro Real Role Will Create A Destructive One Few figures in the saga are as moving as Paolo Gucci. He was talented and restless, and by every account he was treated abominably. Working under his father Aldo, who was authoritarian and certain of his own genius, Paolo was handed a title and given no authority. “I was not allowed to do anything”, he complained. When he tried to start a line under his own name, the family that had stifled him closed ranks against him as one body. Aldo, who quarrelled endlessly with Rodolfo, instantly joined hands with him to crush the boy. What does a cornered son do? Paolo handed evidence of his father's tax evasion to the American authorities. Aldo, the architect of the entire empire, was convicted and sent to prison. A son put his own father behind bars. Read that line again, slowly, and let its full weight settle on you. It is hard not to feel a flash of anger at Paolo, and just as hard to hold on to it. Who had made him this way? A family that gave him a famous surname and no room to be himself, a family that treated his hunger for dignity as an act of betrayal. The lesson is plain and unforgiving. The next generation will find a role in the business one way or another. The only choice a family really has is whether to give that role to them openly, or to force them to seize it in anger. Talent that is denied an honest outlet does not simply disappear. It festers, and then it turns. Lesson Three: Keep The Family, The Owners And The Managers In Clear View Many years ago, Renato Tagiuri and John Davis gave us the three-circle model, a simple and powerful way of seeing a family business as three overlapping groups, the family, the owners and the managers. One person may sit inside all three circles at once. The circles still remain distinct, and a family gets into trouble the moment it forgets which is which. The House of Gucci shows what happens when the circles fold into one another and no one can tell them apart any more. Think of Patrizia Reggiani, long before she plotted a murder. In the early years she was genuinely good for Maurizio. She gave a timid young man the courage to stand up to a domineering father. “I knew he was weak”, she said, “but I was not weak. I pushed him so hard that he became president of Gucci.” Over time, though, her ambition found no proper home, and so it spilled into interference. She held no formal position in the company, yet she tried to run it through her husband, feeding his grievances against his uncle and his cousins, and measuring respect by who was offered champagne first at a party. Her appetite was unmistakable. She once said that she would rather “weep in a Rolls-Royce than be happy on a bicycle.” Most business families wrestle with similar questions. What is the rightful place of the son-in-law, the daughter-in-law, the person who marries into the family and the firm? Shutting them out is rarely the healthy answer. What works is clarity, with them and with everyone, about where ownership ends and management begins, and about how a marriage relates to both. A family that leaves these lines undrawn ends up negotiating its most intimate relationships through resentment. And resentment, as Gucci shows us, can turn deadly. Lesson Four: Why Control Without Grooming Is A Trap Rodolfo loved his only son, and he failed him in the most ordinary way a loving father can. He never let him grow up. As one of Maurizio's associates put it, “Rodolfo gave him the castle and not the money to maintain it.” Rodolfo held on to every decision, trusted his son with almost nothing, and prepared no one to follow him. On his deathbed he confided his fear that money and power would change his boy. They did, for the simple reason that the boy had never been allowed to practise being a man. So, when Maurizio finally took control, he held the largest single block of shares in the company and very little experience of running it. His vision was brilliant. He dreamed of a global luxury house with professional management, modern design and sophisticated marketing, which is more or less the company that non-family professionals would later build on the ruins he left behind. A vision, though, has to be carried out, and owning a company teaches a person nothing about running one. Maurizio managed, in the unsparing words of his own advisers, “by intuition”. He was charming and mercurial, a child in a sweet shop who wanted everything at once and understood almost nothing about cash flow. Within a few years a company that had been earning sixty million dollars was losing sixty million. “Intuition”, one adviser observed, “will carry you while business is good and will desert you the moment business turns bad.” Here is the lesson every owning family should write upon its heart. Ownership is something a family passes down to its children. The skill to run a great company is something each generation has to build for itself, or buy in honestly from people who already have it. To know what you are good at, and to bring in fine professionals for everything else, is one of the highest forms of stewardship a family can practise. Maurizio came to it too late, and he came to it on borrowed money. Lesson Five: Build The Rules Of The Family Before The Quarrels Begin Through the 1980s, Gucci became famous for its lawsuits rather than its loafers. There were criminal complaints over forged signatures, with civil suits piled on top of them. An eighty-year-old patriarch had his office boxed up and emptied overnight. Brother was set against brother, and cousin against cousin. In all of this there was no family constitution, no family council, no shareholders' agreement worth the name, and, most damaging of all, no neutral person to whom a dispute could be carried before it reached a courtroom. It is hard not to compare this with the Cartiers, whose story has appeared in these pages before. As far back as 1906, old Alfred Cartier wrote a dispute-resolution clause into the firm's founding documents. If his sons ever fell out, the matter would go to a named arbiter. The Cartiers kept a family council at a time when most families kept only their quarrels. They were not spared every grief. They were spared the spectacle of destroying one another in public. The Guccis had built no such structure, and so every disagreement had only two places to go, into silence or into court. Families reach for litigation when they have built nothing better to reach for. A constitution, a family council, a forum where grievances can be aired and settled inside the family, the habit of mediation in place of a lawsuit, these are the load-bearing walls of a dynasty. They have to be raised in the sunshine, because no one can raise them in the middle of a storm. The Reckoning, And A Bitter Irony The end arrived quietly, in a lawyer's office, with the stroke of a pen. Worn down by the family wars, Maurizio first joined hands with the Bahrain-based investment house Investcorp to buy out his relatives. It was the first time an outsider had ever held a meaningful block of the family's shares. Then, drowning in losses he could not manage, he sold his own remaining half. On 23 September 1993, in the offices of a Swiss bank in Lugano, surrounded by lawyers and financiers, Maurizio Gucci signed away the last of the family's stake. After more than seventy years, not one Gucci owned any part of Gucci. Eighteen months later he was dead. Here lies the cruellest irony of the whole story. Once the feuding owners were gone, the professionals turned a near-bankrupt company, within a decade, into one of the most valuable luxury brands on earth, its sales climbing from a few hundred million dollars into the billions. Everything Maurizio had dreamed of came true. The global house, the professional management, the modern marketing, all of it arrived. It simply arrived for strangers, while the family watched from outside the gates. The craftsmanship of the first generation, the genius of the second and the dream of the third all lived on. The family that had carried them was simply no longer there. That is the true shape of shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves. The wealth does not always vanish into thin air. Sometimes it just moves quietly out of the hands of the family that built it. What The Bag Came To Mean Let me come back to that Gucci bag, bought in Singapore a quarter of a century ago with overtime money. For twenty-five years it was simply a beautiful thing, hard-earned and much loved. Since reading Forden's book, I cannot pick it up without thinking of the family whose name it carries. The bag has outlasted the family's ownership of the very company that made it. There is something almost unbearably poignant in that. A canvas cross-body bag, in a cupboard in India, has held on to its Gucci for longer, in a sense, than the Guccis themselves did. Strip away the murder, the courtrooms and the couture, and the book leaves a business family with a handful of quiet instructions. Divide ownership in a way that feels fair to those who build the value, and be willing to revisit it as contributions change over the years. Give your children a genuine role in good time, before their talent curdles into resentment. Keep the family, the owners and the managers in clear view, and decide with open eyes where the people who marry in will stand. Earn the right to manage the business, or hand that task to those who have earned it. And raise your governance, your council and your means of settling disputes while the days are still calm, because none of it can be raised once the quarrels begin. Guccio Gucci began with a craftsman's pride and a porter's eye for beauty. His grandsons inherited the genius and never learnt the grace of sharing it. The bags still sell. The name still shines. The family is simply no longer in the room where the decisions are made. Every dynasty would do well to keep that warning close. A great family business is rarely destroyed in a single dramatic moment. It is undone slowly, across ordinary years, each time a family allows pride to win over governance. The House of Gucci shows us where that road ends. The ending of our own story is still ours to write. Dr. Nupur Pavan Bang is Founder & Chief Family Business Navigator at Bodhi Advisory & Nurturing Group. She writes and advises on family enterprise, governance and succession. She can be reached at npbang@gmail.com. Views are personal.

Last week, HMRC announced a significant update to its plans for the mandatory payrolling of Benefits in Kind, introducing a phased implementation from April 2027. Under previous proposals, employers were expected to payroll almost all Benefits in Kind from April 2027 (with limited exceptions such as accommodation and beneficial loans). However, following delays in publishing detailed technical guidance, HMRC has now confirmed a more gradual rollout. From 6 April 2027, mandatory payrolling will apply only to: Company cars and car fuel Vans and van fuel Private medical benefits (including dental) All other benefits in kind will continue to be reported via P11D or voluntary payrolling until later phases are introduced. HMRC has indicated that the remaining benefits are expected to be brought into mandatory payrolling from April 2028, with further details and timelines to be confirmed in due course. This change reflects the practical challenges employers, payroll providers, and software developers face in moving to real-time reporting, and is intended to allow more time for systems and processes to be updated. What this means for employers While the immediate scope of the changes has been reduced, this remains a fundamental shift in how benefits are reported and taxed. Employers should continue preparing for real-time reporting through payroll, with an initial focus on the benefits included in the first phase. Key actions include: Reviewing current benefit offerings and identifying those in scope for April 2027 Assessing whether payroll systems can support real-time reporting requirements Engaging with payroll providers and software developers to plan implementation Communicating upcoming changes to employees and stakeholders Further technical guidance from HMRC is expected over the coming months. How we can help Our employment tax and payroll specialists can support you in understanding the impact of these changes and preparing for the transition. If you would like to discuss how these developments affect your organisation, please get in touch with your usual contact at James Cowper Kreston or a member of our employment tax team here.

The Nottingham Concert Band certainly struck a chord with the Wilkins Group after the global packaging giant handed over a £1,000 cheque to fund the purchase of new instruments and music. The West Bridgford based independent community band, under the direction of Music Director and Conductor Robert Parker since 1993, travels around the county delivering a diverse range of musical style to audiences through formal evening concerts, Christmas specials, summer season outdoor engagements, community fundraisers and private functions. The Wilkins Group donation forms part of the company’s year-long commitment to supporting local charities. It has provided a significant boost to the charity’s funds. Rosemary Attard, a trustee for the organisation, said: “We usually have to rely on subs and ticket sales to fund the band. Only occasionally do we get a donation, so we are immensely grateful for the Wilkins Group’s contribution.” Over 70 musicians from across the East Midlands come together to create the distinctive sound of the wind band. A much-loved part of the county’s music scene, the inclusive group ranges in age from 18 to 80-plus. Aron Wilkins, joint managing director of the Wilkins Group, said: "The Nottingham Concert Band is such a worthwhile organisation. We just love how they bring people of all ages together and give them a platform to develop their potential and shine!" “The music charity has been making a real difference in Nottinghamshire, not only by giving local musicians a chance and a place to explore their talents, but also by sharing the enjoyment of live music with the community." “As a local organisation, their passion and dedication in bringing people together through a shared love of music has made them the perfect choice for our charity initiative.” Nottingham Concert Band holds its rehearsals at Rushcliffe Spencer Academy in Boundary Road in West Bridgford each Tuesday evening. It will next perform at Proms in the Park at Bridgford Park in West Bridgford for Armed Forces Day on Saturday, June 27. As a family run firm, The Wilkins Group is dedicated to supporting its local community and adapting its manufacturing practices to reduce and ultimately eradicate single-use plastics within the industry. As well as producing food packaging for the likes of Pukka, Pizza Express, Harrods and Cadbury, the business is leading the way in alternatives such as board trays for food packaging, including the use of compostable materials, and award winning 100 per cent plastic-free hangers. For more information on The Wilkins Group visit here.

HMG Paints, the UK’s leading independent paint manufacturer, is proud to announce its participation in the international ‘Cool Roofs. Smarter Choice.’ campaign. This initiative, launched in collaboration with the Nova Paint Club in Vancouver in May, aims to accelerate the adoption of solar-reflective coatings to combat rising urban temperatures, improve building comfort, and reduce energy consumption across the UK and around the globe. While the campaign marks a new global push, HMG Paints brings a wealth of expertise to the table. The company has a storied history in solar-reflective technology, having supplied its Retroflect coatings since 1974 through its long-standing partnership with W.H. Screetons, which is now a proud part of the HMG Paints Group. A Smart Solution for Modern Challenges Cool roof coatings reflect a high percentage of sunlight and minimise heat absorption. Due to their high reflectance and thermal emissivity, these solutions keep roof surfaces significantly cooler, reducing interior building temperatures and lowering the demand for air conditioning. Dr Aditi Bunker, an epidemiologist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, who has been doing global studies on cool roofs and health said: “Extreme heat is a significant health risk in our cities. As temperatures continue to rise, adapting to heat is becoming a public health priority. Cool roofs are an example of an evidence-based solution that can reduce indoor heat exposure, thus improving health, wellbeing and comfort of people exposed to extreme heat.” Cool roofs have been shown to lower internal temperatures by 2-5°C, making it more comfortable for students to learn, workers to be more productive, and for people to sleep better at night. They also lessen the thermal stress on roofing materials and improve the efficiency of solar panels. They offer an accessible cooling solution for low-income communities, who are disproportionately exposed to severe overheating and cannot afford air conditioning. HMG is currently working closely with its Nova Paint Club partners to ensure this proven technology is more accessible than ever to the UK market. By sharing knowledge and best practices with independent manufacturers globally, HMG is reinforcing the role of coatings as a vital tool for an eco-efficient future. Jonathan Falder, Sales Director for HMG Paints, said: "At HMG, we believe innovation should have a real-world impact. By supporting this global campaign, we are highlighting ‘cool roofs’ as a simple, low-cost, yet high-impact solution to the climate challenges affecting our cities, towns and villages. Whether it’s a commercial warehouse or a residential rooftop, a simple coat of solar-reflective paint can improve comfort and contribute to a more sustainable environment." Key Benefits of Cool Roof Technology The technology featured in the Retroflect range and supported by the Nova Paint Club offers immediate advantages for building performance and sustainability: Greater Energy Efficiency: Average reduction of 2 to 5°C in indoor temperatures, potentially reducing cooling energy consumption by up to 15%. Asset Longevity: Lower surface temperatures reduce thermal stress on roofing structures, extending their useful life and optimising the performance of solar panels. Professional Value: Architects, engineers, and facilities managers can offer clients a cost-effective solution to improve a building's EPC rating and sustainability profile. Combating Urban Heat: By reducing the "Urban Heat Island" effect, these coatings help lower the average temperature of densely built-up areas. Environmental Protection: Lower energy consumption leads to fewer greenhouse gas emissions, helping to mitigate global warming. “For building professionals, cool roofs are not only climate-smart but business-smart,” says Paolo Giaccone, Secretary General of Nova, whose members are spread out in Europe, Asia and the Americas. “As temperatures get higher, keeping heat out will be fundamental to building design. Cool roofs are a simple way to build in heat resiliency and future proof buildings that will need more cooling without using energy.” “They lower operating costs for clients, extend roof life and can help get ahead of future building regulations to address extreme heat,” he adds. “Whether it’s retrofitting a school or designing a new residential complex, cool roofs deliver immediate and long-term value.” Founded in 1983, the Nova Paint Club is an international alliance of leading independent paint and coatings manufacturers and is spearheading the ‘Cool Roofs. Smarter Choice.’ campaign. The group facilitates the global exchange of technology, research, and sustainability initiatives, allowing members like HMG Paints to remain at the forefront of industry innovation and drive innovations such as Cool Roof technology. For more information on HMG Paints or to discuss your own Cool Roof initiative please visit here.

The government has recently confirmed a number of significant changes to Companies House filing requirements which are expected to take effect from April 2028. These changes are aimed at improving transparency and reducing economic crime and will affect small companies. Profit and loss accounts will need to be filed Currently, many small companies can file accounts at Companies House without submitting a profit and loss account. From April 2028, small and micro companies will be required to file a profit and loss account with Companies House as part of their annual accounts filing. Following consultation with businesses and advisers, the government has confirmed that companies will be able to opt out of having the profit and loss account published on the public register. This means that while the information must be filed with Companies House, it will not be available for public inspection. The information will, however, be available to relevant government authorities where required. Accounts must be filed using approved software Companies House will move to a fully digital filing system. From April 2028, companies will no longer be able to file accounts using Companies House's existing web-based accounts filing service. Instead, accounts must be filed using approved commercial software. Many businesses already use accounting or accounts production software and may see little practical impact. However, directors who currently prepare and file accounts directly through Companies House will need to ensure they have suitable software in place before the changes take effect. Restrictions on changing your accounting year end The government has announced plans to restrict the ability of companies to repeatedly shorten their accounting reference period (year end). Under the current rules, companies can generally shorten their accounting period as often as required. This flexibility has sometimes been used to alter filing dates or reporting periods. The new rules will limit the number of times a company can shorten its accounting reference date. Detailed guidance has not yet been published, so it is not currently known exactly how frequently changes will be permitted or what exceptions may apply. What should company directors do now? There is no immediate action required, as these changes are not expected to take effect until April 2028. However, directors should be aware that: Profit and loss accounts will need to be filed with Companies House. Companies will be able to opt out of public disclosure of those profit and loss accounts. Accounts filing will need to be completed through approved software. Future changes to accounting year ends are likely to be more restricted than under the current rules. We will provide further updates as additional guidance is released by Companies House. If you would like to discuss how we can help your business, please speak to your usual James Cowper Kreston contact, or get in touch with our team here to find out how we can help you maximise your potential.

Cyberattacks are becoming an increasingly significant threat to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), yet insurance adoption remains disproportionately low. Limited awareness of cyber risks, affordability challenges, and evolving threat landscapes continue to leave many SMEs financially exposed. As cyber incidents grow in severity and sophistication, closing the protection gap has become a pressing priority for insurers, says GlobalData, a leading intelligence and productivity platform. According to GlobalData’s 2025 SME Survey, 34.7% of global SMEs had experienced a cyber incident in the past three years. In Europe, German SMEs are the most vulnerable to cyberattacks, with this figure rising to 40.3%. Yet cyber insurance is often viewed as an unnecessary product, with just 16.8% of global SMEs stating they have a standalone policy in place. While some SMEs may be protected against cyber risks as part of another insurance policy, low penetration rates are alarming, signalling that most SMEs could be underinsured. Beatriz Benito, Lead Insurance Analyst, GlobalData, comments: “Low cyber insurance rates among SMEs suggest that many smaller businesses are still overlooking cover—possibly because they do not understand the value of such policies.” Smaller businesses are less likely to have the same level of technical defence as larger enterprises, making them more vulnerable. Benito concludes: “Hackers will naturally view SMEs as easier targets. A sizable cyberattack will have a massive financial impact on a large corporation, but on a smaller, less resilient business, an unexpected cash drain can cause immediate insolvency if they are not protected by an adequate cyber insurance policy." “Cyber insurance is characterized by high premium base lines to ensure profit margins, as providers grapple with ever-evolving risks and limited data. As a result, many smaller businesses have been priced out, unable to afford cyber cover." "To bridge this gap, insurers must make cover accessible for small businesses through continuous risk monitoring and promoting good digital practices.”