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Family Businesses

Many of our clients enjoy the personal and financial rewards of working together with other family members, mentoring members of the “younger generation” and watching them develop into confident and successful executives.  They also recognize that these rewards do not come without risks.  Family-owned businesses face different challenges than other privately owned businesses.  The health of the business and the well being of the family are intertwined. Business decisions affect the family’s financial security, relationships, and harmony. 

We have experience advising our clients on such matters as compensation plans for family and non-family members, Buy-Sell Agreements among owners and establishing boards of directors or boards of advisors to help guide the business.  Often the most significant and challenging step in the life of the business is designing and implementing the succession plan to transfer ownership and management from one generation to another in a manner that preserves the financial security of the older generation, protects the viability of the business, and vests ownership and control to a younger generation.  We have helped many clients achieve this objective successfully.  As a founding sponsor and active participant in the University of Connecticut’s Family Business Program, we have the opportunity to work with and learn from many of Connecticut’s leading family businesses.

We have acted as general counsel for a family business with several hundred employees through three generations of ownership spanning several decades.  During those years, we guided the owners through stock gift programs that ensured the company would remain in the family following the founders’ deaths, created family limited partnerships and family limited liability companies to own and develop real estate used by the business, structured and implemented the acquisition of shares owned by a non-employee family member, assisted in the creation of an outside board of directors, and established compensation plans for family owner/executives and key non-family executives.

For additional information, contact Craig L. Sylvester (860) 240-1032, csylvester@reidandriege.com, John M. Horak (860) 240-1094, jhorak@reidandriege.com, Mark X. Ryan (860) 240-1056, mryan@reidandriege.com, or Kevin G. Ferrigno (860) 240-1051, kferrigno@reidandriege.com.