The competitiveness and sustainability of a company depends on both external factors (sector structure, competitors, technological change, etc.) and internal factors (positioning, business model, leadership, commitment, productivity, culture, customer satisfaction, governance, etc.). ) Among the internal factors that make a company sustainable, the structure and profile of the property , its cohesion, the relationships that exist between the partners, the succession processes, the symbiosis achieved with the rest of the stakeholders such as clients stand out. , employees, or society, etc. The purpose of the institutional configuration is to align the composition of the ownership, its plans, wants, attachments, and governance model to the objective of making the company sustainable and competitive . It does so through initiatives such as the design of a better shareholder structure, the review of the way in which property rights and responsibilities are exercised, the redesign of its governance, the management of succession processes, the resolution of conflicts between the property or between it and the management team, the creation of value-added relationships with the rest of the stakeholders, etc. The institutional configuration also has the mission of reducing the possible dysfunctional dependence that the company may have on a person, family or shareholder group. Company ownership Active or passive? Company ownership can be a company's greatest asset or worst nightmare.
Active when it adds palpable value . Nightmare when it becomes a defect for the development of the company. Through the institutional configuration, the probability of the latter must be reduced and the probability of the former increased. Property, like any living system, has both mechanical elements (knowledge, resources, assets) and organic Cell Phone Number List elements (intentions, motivation, relationships with the management team, commitment, generosity, etc.) Property is an asset when value is provided both mechanically and organically and above all when the constructive interdependence between these two elements generates a dynamic of progress where the value provided is a suggestive mix of science and art. The institutional configuration aims to ensure that ownership is adequate to face the future of the business. And this is because it brings together the knowledge, contacts, financial resources, motivation and spirit that the company requires for its healthy growth. Otherwise, the paradox may arise that the owners are the biggest enemies of their own company. Can there be owners whose priority is not the continuity of the company? Fortunately, being an owner almost always goes hand in hand with the zeal and responsibility of making the business flourish and last.
But within the universe of possible shareholders there are those whose priority is not the long-term continuity of the company for different reasons, some more weighty than others. One of these groups are private equity , which also tend to take a relevant shareholding position and whose business model consists of rotating the investment made in cycles of - years. Your business is to sell the company for at least double the purchase price. To do this, they often have to make very effective decisions that make the company “pretty” before the sale. In many cases the effect of their decisions is positive from the perspective, especially of the shareholder. It could happen that some of these decisions are harmful from the perspective of other stakeholders or from a more long-term perspective. Another segment of owners without a great focus on the continuity of the company are activist funds and speculative investors . Activist funds look for companies with fragmented ownership and a board they can enter and influence. When they achieve this, they usually drive “hard” decisions linked to short-term financial metrics. The story is similar to the previous case. The displacement of historical families from the hard core of companies' capital is resulting in an institutional configuration that paves the way for the entry of activist funds and other very financial investors with an agenda where sustainability considerations are secondary. A possible third group are owners disconnected from the responsibility of being involved with the continuity of the company, such as members of an owner family who have inherited the property, but do not “feel” or do not know how to be responsible shareholders.