Francis Lam – Salon.com
ity the poor restaurant critic. Sure, they dine every night at the finest tables, someone else picks up the tab, and they call it work. But imagine being in their shoes, working in the age of yelp.com and where everyone and their sister has a food blog telling you about where they had dinner last night. Wouldn't you feel a little bit like your profession is just staring into the abyss, waiting for someone to give you a push? (I was a writer for a magazine printed on dead trees. I know that feeling well.) A panel at New York University last week discussed the viability and purpose of professional restaurant critics, and the differences of views were stark.
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The Largest Foreign Family Companies
The World's Largest Family Businesses
Spotlighting 116 billion-dollar family firms around the globe.
When Family Business first sought to identify the largest family firms outside the U.S. last year, we came up with no fewer than 95 companies generating annual business of more than $1 billion (Winter 2001). “They may well represent just the tip of the iceberg,” we added. We were right. Even after eliminating several firms whose family credentials have been re-evaluated, this year we find at least 116 family firms at or above the $1 billion threshold.
These 116 firms are spread over 24 countries and a broad range of products and company types: public, private, group, holding company—and once again, we’ve probably missed a great many. Between shifting disclosure regulations and shifting currency exchange rates, pinning down precise numbers and owners is far more challenging for foreign companies than for those in the U.S., where we most recently found 138 billion-dollar firms (Autumn 2001).
Many foreign companies operate behind intricate holding-company structures that make ownership and even management difficult to define. For purposes of this global list, any company in which a family seems to exercise a significant presence—whether through ownership or management, but not necessarily both—has been included.
As we’ve done with our lists in the past, we invite readers to advise us of companies we’ve missed. In the meantime, the listed companies and their websites may provide you with useful insights, and perhaps even possible contacts as you ponder globalizing your own operation.
Two lessons spring to mind right off the bat:
First, outside the U.S., family companies are often the most potent institutions in society—more effective even than their national governments.
Second, in family business as in everything else, great size isn’t necessarily synonymous with success. The No. 1 firm on our list is the Koo Cha-kyung family’s LG Group (formerly Lucky Goldstar). With South Korea’s largest chemical company as well as subsidiaries in telecommunications, consumer electronics and financial services, LG is one of South Korea’s five mammoth chaebols—that is, family-run industrial groups. But the chaebols are in trouble these days, and most of them, including LG, are being reorganized.
The apparent motto: Size, like everything else, can be a blessing or a curse, depending on what you do with it.
Number in parentheses is last year’s ranking. NR = Not ranked last year.
Revenue figures are most recent available. * = Public company