Ernst & Young to hold second annual Family Business event in Buenos Aires

EY in collaboration with Argentinaian newspaper La Nacion are holding the second annual addition of the Family Business event. Family Business celebrates the exceptional stories and bonds that are made in family owned and run businesses and discusses family business values, generalisations and strategies for the future.

Family run businesses account for more than 66 percent of all businesses around the globe. In Argentina that number is higher than 80 percent which represents both a significant value for the country as well as a challenge. With over 80 relevant family businesses that have gone global and employ the majority of Argentinians, the country is a notorious hotspot for entrepreneurship in Latin America.

The event will kick off tomorrow this Thursday, the ninth of August at the MALBA or Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires with Eduardo Coduri, CEO of EY in Argentina, Paraguay y Uruguay.

“In Argentina we must have 80 very relevant companies that are Family businesses. They are organizations that have been for Argentina, for the region and also for the world representatives more that worthy of our country. We have an engine of companies that have been successful, and not only locally. That is very remarkable,” Coduri said at the inaugural Family Business event.

Throughout the day different key speakers will lead the audience, who will be attended by family business owners – large and small – as well as members of the private sector through a number of topics including; The challenges of running a small business, business exit strategies, visions, modern kinship and resilience.

One of the most discussed topics of the day will be succession. “There was an investigation with 109,000 young people from 705 universities from around the world, even of Argentina, and only 5% want stay in the family business,” said Coduri.

“That's because they are attracted for another type of work: they want be entrepreneurs themselves, they do not want to continue the work that maybe their father started or his grandfather. They prefer to start their own project, maybe linked with technology. That is a concern,” he continued.

“You have to think that perhaps behind that great brand a surname is hidden, the name of a family”
_{- Eduardo Coduri, EY.}

When considering the future of family run businesses in Latin America, an important succession strategy must be in place. However, family business are also outgrowing the market according to the EY Growth Barometer 2018. “[EY finds] that family-owned businesses are growing faster and creating more jobs than their peers. This year, we also find that family businesses are more likely to have a woman at the helm, just as diversity emerges as a clear recruitment priority across the whole of the middle market,” states the report.

For this reason, EY have recently been building its Global Family Business Center for Excellence and thought leadership on the subject of family business around the globe. The professional services giant added the family business awards to their Entrepreneur of the Year awards in 2012 and is now hosting events to facilitate and disseminate their insights.

EY’s Family Business of the Year awards

Celebrated throughout the event will be the founders of Brazil’s Magazine Luiza and Peru’s Incasur. Both have been nominated by EY as the two Family Business Awards of Excellence winners for 2018 in Latin America.

Luiza Helana Trajano started a small gift shop in the countryside of São Paulo in the late-1950s. Together with her husband, her goal was to grow the business into a retail chain that would employ their entire family. Today Magazine Luiza has nearly 800 physical stores and employs over 20,000 people across the country. When Luiza’s niece took over leadership she turned the business into a regional powerhouse and one of the country’s favourite retailers.

Her story and fellow award of excellence winner Teodoro Ortiz Tocre tie into each other in terms of upscale and family ingenuity. Ortiz Tocre’s father bought a mill and began producing grains native to the Andes and when he took over, he saw the potential in dried pearl quinoa and other cereals. He continued to break into new ways of bringing native Peruvian grains to the modern consumer and has been a large influencer in this regard.

The tagline for the event is “projects with history, businesses with future” which seems to fit with Helana Trajano and Ortiz Tocre’s story. Their’s are just two of the amazing histories of Latin American family business owners which will be on display tomorrow. The event will delve further into these types of concepts with real examples and advice from industry leaders around Argentina.