Special Report: Generation Next

Western Australia has a generation of highly driven business entrepreneurs who have been with us for decades and continue running their companies well past retirement age.

Bill Clough is a rare specimen when it comes to looking at dynastic Western Australians.

For now the Cloughs tentatively remain the largest shareholder in the engineering company that bears the family name. But that is set to change.

The Paino family, owners of prominent South Fremantle business Sealanes, provides a telling case study of a management succession that has not run according to plan.

While the issue of succession normally focuses on fathers and their children, in some notable cases succession has initially passed from husband to wife.

The term ‘family business' is typically associated with private companies, yet people like Rupert Murdoch, Kerry Packer and Frank Lowy have proven it to have a much wider import.