A recent Office for National Statistics report estimates that the top 10% of earners own 45% of Britain’s £14 trillion total wealth. Most of these earners are business owners, but 70% of their wealth will not last beyond the third generation.
In our podcast this week, Episode 6, I talk to Hakan Hillerstrom about the ‘Survival of the Family Business’. Hakan highlights how good governance and planning can lead to the survival of the family business and the preservation of the family wealth – to six or even seven generations.
Mrs Smith, better known as Denise Coates, is Britain’s highest paid CEO with a take home pay last year of £323million.
Like Hakan, Denise worked in the family business from a young age. Her father had a betting business, Provincial Racing and she worked as a young girl in the cashier’s department where she would mark up bets.
However, unlike many of the families Hakan has worked with, she was allowed to take over the small chain of shops after leaving university and it did not take her long to make the business profitable enough to acquire other local betting businesses.
In 1995 she became MD of her betting empire and took time to develop an online betting platform. When this was fully operational and tested, she sold her betting estate for £40 million and gambled on the online betting platform Bet365, making more money than her offline business – her bet paid off.
In 2015 Denise moved Bet365 to Gibraltar where the regulations for online betting are more favourable. At that time the UK was part of the EU and Denise could take advantage of our EU Freedom of Establishment to move the business offshore Although Gibraltar is a UK colony it also has a ‘special relationship’ with the EU and the move paid off.
The question wealth creators are asking now is will this Freedom to Establish remain when we leave the EU?
I put this question to leading tax barrister Setu Kamal of 15 Old Square as part of our mini-series ‘Post Brexit and Wealth Creators’. How much scope is there to re-establish when we leave the EU? Setu will give his opinion as part of our podcast series on Wealth Creators Post Brexit and will also take part in our Panel Discussions on the 25th February.
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And if you would like to meet with Caroline for advice on Good Governance or any other concern to which she or her network can assist simply call Deborah on 020 3740 7423 or contact her on deborah@garnhamfos.com
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