Press releases

Listed family companies conduct business in a more stable and successful manner than non-family companies – and this positive performance increases with the family’s influence on the business. This was the finding of a study conducted on behalf of the Foundation for Family Businesses: “Börsennotierte Familienunternehmen in Deutschland” (“Listed Family Businesses in Germany”) was produced by the Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies at the Technical University (TU) of Munich under the direction of Prof. Dr Dr Ann-Kristin Achleitner, Prof. Dr Reiner Braun and Prof. Dr Christoph Kaserer.

In a long-term historical study, the Foundation for Family Businesses explains why such fundamentally different business landscapes arose in Germany and the United States. Family companies in Germany have evolved into a strong pillar of the German economy over centuries. But their role in the United States is smaller. The study explores the reasons why.

Companies are expected to provide more and more transparency today. But some of the planned disclosure requirements extend well beyond the mere exchange of information with government officials. Confidential data from companies and shareholders will no longer be adequately protected if this data is posted on the Internet. The results of several studies conducted by the Foundation for Family Businesses are summarised in the video "Data Protection for Family Businesses".

Family businesses and their shareholders are subject to increasingly stronger social control through the continuously growing number of disclosure requirements. At the same time, many of these regulations infringe unjustifiably upon the data protection rights of family business owners. This is one key result of the first extensive study on the topic commissioned by the Foundation for Family Businesses.

The main reasons for Germany’s slide from twelfth to sixteenth place is a significant loss of tax competitiveness. This is one of the results of the the Country Index for Family Businesses, which evaluates Germany’s attractiveness as a location. The current rankings are led by Switzerland, followed by the United Kingdom and the United States. France, Spain and Italy are at the bottom of the rankings – all of them unchanged from the comparative calculation for the Country Index 2016.

For more than a decade now, the Foundation for Family Businesses has regularly commissioned the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) and the Institute for SME research and entrepreneurship in Mannheim (ifm) to conduct studies on the economic importance of German family businesses. Our short explanation video summarises the key statistics.