Succession Challenges for Asian Family Businesses

Co-organized by the HKUST-NYU Stern MS in Global Finance Program and the CFA Society Taiwan

About the Seminar

An extraordinary generation of Asian family business owners is aging, throwing up uncomfortable questions about succession and intergenerational wealth management. In Hong Kong, for instance, the family heads of the 50 largest businesses are on average 69 years, and 10 out of 50 are above 80 years. These entrepreneurs have overcome many formidable challenges in building some of the most successful businesses in the world. Succession planning is the final challenge – one that, without sufficient planning, can threat their entire legacy.

In this seminar, Professor Kasper Meisner Nielsen from HKUST will address the succession challenges facing Asian family businesses, provide a road map of how this challenge can be overcome, and highlight important lessons from past successions.

Speaker Bio

Professor Kasper Meisner Nielsen is Associate Professor at HKUST, and Academic Director of the HKUST-NYU Stern MS in Global Finance. He received his Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of Copenhagen. Professor Nielsen previously taught at Chinese University of Hong Kong and Copenhagen Business School, and has been a visiting scholar at Stern School of Business at New York University.

Professor Nielsen's research interests are corporate governance, entrepreneurial finance, family business, and household finance. His research has featured in international newspapers and magazines including Business Week, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, International Herald Tribune, The Economist, The Times of India, and Wall Street Journal. He has studied the consequence of family succession on firm performance, the value of independent directos, the level of executive compensation, why individuals shy away from stocks, and households' decisions to refinance their mortgage. His work has been published in academic journals including The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, Review of Finance, Journal of Corporate Finance and Journal of Banking and Finance.

His research has been awarded with external financing from competitive research grants on several occasions. On his area of expertise Professor Nielsen has served as an external advisor, consultant, and lecturer to government agencies and companies in China, Denmark and Hong Kong.

Seminar Schedule

19:00     Registration and Networking
19:30     Introduction
19:40     Presentation
20:30     Q & A
21:00     End