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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.
Episode Synopsis:
The Castle at Taunton
Brothers Dominic and Nick Chapman return to their childhood home in Taunton to see if they’re willing to take over the reins from their parents and to run 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.
For more information contact: Amanda Wood, Twofour Press and Publicity, tel: 01752 727400
Banner image: Nick Chapman (left), Kit Chapman (centre) and Dominic Chapman (right) |
