Most companies around the world are owned or controlled by their founding families. The subject of the course is these firms in their different forms: private family firms, closely held firms, family offices and family investment offices. The course explores the unique finance, legal, governance and management issues faced by family firms, and ways in which these issues can be addressed. The course provides students interested in founding, owning, managing, investing in, or partnering with such firms with a framework for analyzing how family ownership and control affect value, and how this value is created and allocated to the various stakeholders of the firm. The course specifically focuses on the financial, legal and corporate governance aspects of family control and their managerial implications. The topics in the course include: family ownership, control and management affecting firm-value; legal standards of valuation (fair value vs. fair market value); shareholder agreements and bylaws; control-enhancing mechanisms, including dual-stock structures, pyramidal structures, board representation; families partnering with strategic investors, financial investors, employers and public shareholders; legal and governance structures; family succession planning, estate planning (gits, wills, trusts and estates); formulating optimal plans for transferring control, and the organizational design of family offices and family investment offices.

If a student does not meet the prerequisite requirements, s/he may take this course only if the permission of the instructor is given. An understanding of financial options will be assumed.