Family business services | Accountants, Tax and Business Advisers in Cumbria and Carlisle

Family businesses face several unique challenges and opportunities which affect their day to day operation and potential future growth. As a successful family business ourselves, we understand these wide ranging issues and are in an ideal position to support and advise you.

Our family business experts are a father and son team, Graham and Chris Lamont. They have drawn on personal experience and their expertise in assisting clients to develop a comprehensive package of services for those operating in this sector.

How do family businesses succeed and prosper?

Family businesses normally take a longer term view and have different values to a purely commercial organisation and often have a philanthropic approach to their local community or industry.

Loyalties and emotional ties can complicate business decisions and the effective running of the business. Successful family businesses, while built on traditional values and ethics, manage these more challenging issues whilst still retaining a strong commercial focus.

Key questions family businesses often need to address:

How do you effectively communicate with all the family?
How do you educate, assess skill sets, give career advice, recruit, develop and mentor family members?
How do family members working in the business create a work-life balance?
How do you structure family share-ownership?
How you provide incentives to non-family members in key management positions?
How do you manage conflict within the family?

How can we help?

In difficult family business situations, an independent, diplomatic adviser can help you see the bigger picture and this is where Lamont Pridmore can assist. Our loyalties lie in working for the best interests of the family and the business, so we are always able to take a neutral but realistic approach.

Business structure

We can work with you to establish an effective and practical management and shareholding structure including engaging with family members who aren’t involved in the business.

The management structure should ensure that individual skills and strengths are put to best use and, more importantly, that everyone knows who’s doing what and when. An effective reward structure should also take into account the contribution of non-family members in key management positions.

The shareholding structure should provide a suitable basis of reward for family whether they are working in the business or not, together with non-family members in senior management roles.

For the smooth running of the organisation, it is also important to engage with family members who are neither shareholders nor take part in the day to day running of the business.

Succession planning

Whilst it is common for family businesses to be passed on to the next generation, an effective and planned transition should not only ensure continuity of the business – it should also improve it.

Naturally, there’s a lot to consider when transferring ownership and management of your family business to the next generation. Is the next generation ready and willing to take up the reins, do you have to choose between offspring or other family members, is the family business the right career choice for them and will they live up to the weight of expectation placed upon them?

A succession plan can enable you to address all the above issues, prepare family members or other staff and remove all doubt and assumptions when the time comes to transfer ownership.

We can also help you identify key members of staff, whether family members or not, who can step in to ensure continuity of business should you or another family member be incapacitated for any reason.

Download our helpful factsheet Succession Planning for the Family Business for more detailed information.

What else can we do for your business?

Our award-winning services can help you maximise the potential of your business by improving profits and increasing efficiency to ensure that it is in the best possible shape when the time comes to transferring ownership. These include: