Business Biographies That Reveal How Ownership Works

Listing without losing control. When Ford Motor Company first sold shares to the public in 1956, Henry Ford II arranged that the Ford family would hold a separate class of shares carrying 40 per cent of the votes, although they owned a small fraction of the equity. Much of the family's stock had passed to the Ford Foundation to avoid estate tax, and the listing let the foundation sell. The family's special voting shares still exist.

Holding companies and family partnerships. Agnelli led Fiat for decades through a chain of family holding companies, at the top of which sat a partnership of family members, letting a minority stake control Italy's largest private industrial group. He chose his grandson John Elkann as heir. After his death in 2003, the structure carried through into Exor, though a long legal dispute with his daughter Margherita over the inheritance followed.

Passing on a fortune early. Walton put his stake in his stores into a family partnership, Walton Enterprises, in 1953, giving his children shares long before Walmart was valuable, so most of the later growth in value never passed through his estate. When Walmart listed in 1970 the family kept a controlling stake. The partnership is a textbook example of estate planning that keeps a business in family hands.

Staying private. Koch took over his father's refinery and engineering firm in 1967 and built Koch Industries into one of America's largest companies without ever listing it on a stock exchange, reinvesting most profits. Private ownership meant no public reporting and no outside shareholders to answer to. It also led to a long legal fight in the 1980s and 1990s in which two of his brothers were bought out and then sued over the price.

A cinema chain controlling media giants. Redstone used his family's cinema company, National Amusements, to buy voting control of Viacom in 1987 and later CBS, holding most of the votes through special shares with a small share of the equity. In his old age the structure turned succession into a public legal battle. His daughter Shari eventually sold National Amusements, and with it control of Paramount, to Skydance in 2025. He died in 2020.

A family trust and its limits. Murdoch controlled News Corp and Fox through voting shares held in a family trust that gave his four eldest children equal votes after his death. When he tried to change the trust to hand control to his son Lachlan, a Nevada probate court blocked him in 2024, and in 2025 the family settled by buying out three of the siblings. It shows how a trust can tie a founder's hands.

Charitable trusts at the top. Tata chaired Tata Sons from 1991 to 2012, a holding company about two thirds owned by charitable trusts founded by earlier family members, which in turn control listed companies such as Tata Steel and TCS. When the board removed his successor Cyrus Mistry in 2016, the dispute reached India's Supreme Court, which upheld the removal and exposed how much power the trusts hold. He died in 2024.

Pyramids and restructuring. Li, who began making plastic flowers in Hong Kong, built control of a vast group through layered holdings: Cheung Kong controlled Hutchison Whampoa, which controlled ports, telecoms and retail around the world. In 2015 he reorganised the group into two companies, CK Hutchison and CK Asset, and moved their legal base to the Cayman Islands. His son Victor took over the chairmanships when he retired in 2018.

Family control of a car giant. Piëch, Ferdinand Porsche's grandson, ran Volkswagen and then chaired its supervisory board, while his family and the Porsche family together owned Porsche SE, which after a failed attempt by Porsche to take over VW in 2008 and 2009 ended up holding most of VW's voting shares. The German state of Lower Saxony keeps a blocking stake under the special Volkswagen law. He died in 2019.

Circular shareholdings and inheritance tax. Lee ran Samsung through a web of cross-shareholdings, with Samsung C&T, Samsung Life and Samsung Electronics owning stakes in each other, so a family holding a few per cent controlled the whole group. The 2015 merger used to strengthen his son Jay Y. Lee's position led to bribery and fraud trials. After his death in 2020 his heirs faced one of the largest inheritance tax bills on record.

Cascading holdings in France. Bolloré rebuilt his family's paper company from the 1980s into a group controlled through a chain of listed and unlisted holding companies, each owning part of the next, which in turn gave him effective control of Vivendi and its media assets with a relatively small direct stake. French courts and regulators have examined these structures. He handed formal leadership to his sons in 2022.

Control through a family holding. Arnault took over the bankrupt textile group Boussac in 1984, which owned Christian Dior, and used Dior as the vehicle to win control of LVMH by 1989. His family holding company, Agache, owns almost all of Christian Dior SE since a 2017 buyout of its minority holders, and through it controls a large stake in LVMH and most of its voting rights. In 2022 he gave each of his five children an equal share of Agache, with rules limiting sales outside the family for decades.

A fixed share of the votes. Roberts, son of Comcast's founder Ralph Roberts, holds a class of shares that carries a third of the company's voting power, set in its rules, however small his economic stake becomes. That has let him run Comcast for decades, buying NBCUniversal and Sky, without the risk of being outvoted. Shareholders have repeatedly asked for the structure to end, without success.

Dual and triple share classes in tech. Page and Sergey Brin listed Google in 2004 with founders' shares carrying ten votes each, explaining in a letter that they wanted to be shielded from short-term pressure. In 2014 Google issued a new class of shares with no votes at all to protect their control as it issued stock to staff. They stepped back from management in 2019 but still control a majority of the votes in Alphabet.