Twofour’s new  four part series for BBC TWO which looks at the dilemmas family firms face as one generation hands on to the next starts on Thursday 7 May. (Repeated the following the Wednesday at 7.00pm, also on BBC TWO) Once a mainstay of business life, the traditional family firm is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. In Britain nine out of ten family businesses now fail to make it past the second generation.

Four family businesses with a succession dilemma – who will take over when the parents retire?  Four potential successors each with a flourishing independent career.  Four families where the next generation have agreed to give it a go, with a week to learn the ropes and a week running the business alone before making the biggest decision of their lives:   whether to walk away from the business, or stay and Keep It In The Family.

Programme synopses

Gary Don Auctioneers, Leeds – 7 May 2009
28 year-old Jamie Don directs music videos, but now his father needs him.  After giving up his own dreams of music stardom Gary Donoughue dedicated his life to the auction house he inherited from his father and grandfather.  But with no-one to take over the business when he retires it faces an uncertain future.  He’s persuaded his son to give the family firm one last go – spending a week learning the skills of identifying, valuing and selling stock before running the firm on his own to help him make a potentially life-changing decision.  Jamie has spent a lifetime avoiding antiques and has never even thought about taking on the family business but if he doesn’t, Leeds’ last independent auction house could be gone forever.   

 
The Castle At Taunton – 14 May 2009
Brothers Dominic and Nick Chapman return to their childhood home in Taunton to see if they’re willing to take over the reigns from their parents and save the family-owned hotel.  Dad Kit comes from five generations of hoteliers but after his own painful succession experience he’s determined to make things easier for his sons.  But which, if either of them, might be best suited to running the family firm?   His older son, Dominic, 35,  is an award-winning chef who trained under Heston Blumenthal and is now in charge of the prestigious kitchen at Michael Parkinson’s The Royal Oak.  Younger son Nick, 33, is a new media entrepreneur who has built up a highly successful internet advertising company.   Both have agreed to a stint spent learning the ropes separately before a busy weekend working together to see if they might be willing and able to take on the challenges of running a famous hotel with forty four rooms, more than fifty staff, and a very particular way of doing things.  With two highly rated restaurants, one of which is regularly Michelin starred, and a turbulent family history over the past fifty years, the brothers – and their father -  have big decisions to make.

Forest Farm – 21 May 2009
28-year-old Sarah manages a busy delicatessen in Glasgow’s trendy West End. But now the future of her family’s 400 acre diary farm in Kent rests squarely on her shoulders.  The farm was established from scratch in the aftermath of the war by Sarah’s 98 year old grandfather Robert, who still lives on the estate.  Her 57-year-old father Gordon is recovering from illness and keen to establish who, if anyone, will take over the farm.  Sarah has a week to learn about milking, feeding, animal husbandry and the day to day running of the business before going it alone to see if country life can compare with city.
But will Sarah be prepared to move 400 miles away from her city life, her job and her friends, in order to keep the family business alive?

Austins Department Store – 28 May 2009
Established in 1830, Austin’s of Derry is the oldest department store in the world.  It survived a fire in 1908 and several bombings during the Troubles in Northern Ireland but can it survive the challenges of succession?   66-yr-old owner Luke Hasson is desperate to retire but all his children have made their lives else where, far away from Derry.  The eldest of his five daughters, 39-year-old Sinead, runs her own successful London-based business in the cutthroat world of recruitment, but her only retail experience is as a teenage Saturday girl.  How will she cope with the challenges of managing more than a hundred staff in 14 departments, and will she be willing to give up her established life and business in London to help save the family firm in Northern Ireland?