Last week, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Youssef bin Ahmed Kano Al -Wajih Khaled Muhammad Kano, may God have mercy on him, left nine months ago, and in November 2024 specifically, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Youssef Khalil Al -Moayad and his children passed away, Al -Wajih Farouk Youssef Al -Moayad, may God have mercy on him, and in September of the same year, Al -Wajih Ahmed Mansour Al -Ali, the founder of the economic group that bore his name, may God have mercy on him, and the groups: Kano, Al -Moayad and Ahmed Mansour Al -Aali.
With the management of those groups to a new generation from the family, the talk about the present and future of family companies in Bahrain is renewed: Will you maintain the legacy of the administration, which has been prevalent for decades as previous generations did? Or will those in charge of it take serious steps towards governance, and to turn into public joint stock companies listed on the Bahrain Stock Exchange or other stock exchanges.
In fact, this conversation is not new, but is renewed, with the multiplicity and popularity of the families and administrators of family members and perhaps the difference of their opinions, orientations and their methods of leadership and management, the leading leaders of Bahraini family companies seek to maintain the company’s entity in the first place, and to ensure the development of its business and profits and expanding its activities secondly, and we do not forget that the late face Khaled was from He founded the Family Companies Association in Bahrain, and its goal is to enrich the discussion in order to preserve the present and future of those companies.
In fact, the benefits of finding ways to ensure the cohesion and continuation of Bahraini family companies are not only in the interest of these companies, but in the interest of the Bahraini national economy as a whole, there are studies and researchers who estimate that family companies in the Kingdom of Bahrain account for 40 to 60% of the private sector activity, and thus provide tens of thousands of job opportunities, and contribute to diversifying sources of income, and leads many economic activities such as construction, transport, hospitality, information technology and many others.
I know that many Bahraini family companies, if not most of them, have something similar to written and agreed internal constitutions, showing the mechanism for the transfer of management from one generation to another, the periods of time to fill and recycle leadership positions, distribute returns between the accommodation, and include tools to monitor performance, and draw the career path for family children who receive positions in the owned companies or affiliated with the family family company, and so on.
This internal constitution guarantees some extent the cohesion of the family company, harmonizing its members, giving everyone who has the right, and reduces the possibilities of a dispute or a feeling of wandering between them, and the company has spent it for itself, but perhaps the governance is more comprehensive than that, it guarantees the development of clear internal regulations, the formation of effective management boards, the adoption of transparency in financial reports, and the guarantee of the separation of ownership and administration.
With the increasing trend in the Gulf countries specifically towards the inclusion of the stock market, and the billionaires that we hear in markets such as Dubai and Saudi Arabia, the inclusion of family companies in the stock market remains an important strategic step worthy of thinking, because of its great benefits, the most prominent of which is the diversification of sources Competitiveness regionally and internationally, without neglecting the challenges resulting from the inclusion, such as the possibility of entering non -active shareholders, and the difference in assessing assets between the owners of the company and the price of the stock after the inclusion.
Many Bahraini commercial families exceeded the so -called “the obstacle of the third generation” in which the company often stumbles with and fades, the Canno family has today reached the seventh generation, the family of Al -Moayad to the fourth generation, and the Ziani as well, and many Bahraini commercial families show good cohesion generation after generation, but economics and markets, and even society, heritage, customs and traditions, they change more quickly, so there is nothing wrong The eyes are open to everything that guarantees the cohesion and growth of the Bahraini family.
