Ticking Time bomb detonated after Patriarch’s Death

By Prof. Enrique Soriano

Mayfull is a $3B business and one of Taiwan’s biggest food importers of meat products. Established in 1963 as a professional food supplier, it is heavily involved in wholesale, food service, retail, logistics, and hotels. The family is behind the famed Miramar Group. Shortly after the death of Mayfull’s founder Huang Jung-tu, a meeting took place between his six sons to discuss how to split the inheritance left by their father.

According to the China Post, after a heated argument and provocation, the fourth son, 54-year-old Huang Ming-Te, allegedly shot his older brother, the second oldest son, in the head. Another older brother, the Chairman of Mayfull Foods, rushed forward in a bid to stop Ming-Te but ended up being shot on the spot. In the conference room, two men lay dead or dying after being shot at close range in the head. When the police arrived, Ming-Te ended it all by putting a bullet in his head and falling from the building’s seventh-floor balcony. The bloody scene that happened was the culmination of a bitter family dispute and a succession gone horribly wrong.

This particular conflict is a rare occurrence, but I have written many cases (Ilusorio, Sytin, Romero, Wong families, among others) of families in dire straits where the hostility started with some petty misunderstandings and unresolved issues but escalated into a full-blown conflict involving sabotage, litigation, intent to injure, fight for money, succession battles and sibling rivalries — sounding more like an entire season of “Game of Thrones” but family members are cast in real-life drama!

LEARNINGS

Where governance goes, succession follows, good, bad or worse. Critical factors like aligning values and having a shared purpose should never be a side dish or an afterthought. In a more desirable state, any initiative related to succession and legacy should be started at the onset and not when the founder is contemplating retirement or when there is a triggering event like death, incapacity, misconduct, or marital conflict. In the Mayfull Foods Corporation case, the conflict was fatal and a clear lesson why founders and family business leaders should  never take governance and succession for granted.

To business owners, please take note: When you are no longer around, I can predictably expect an emotional roller coaster ride among your offspring. The shouting matches on a regular basis can lead to family members resorting to external bodies such as the courts, shareholder votes, and media while refusing to talk directly with each other. And when they turn to lawyers, trust becomes very difficult to restore. In my work as a family business advisor for many enterprises in Asia, creating solutions to work-related rivalries can be quite complex. It entails a combination of a governance plan, solid management, and business solutions in real-time.

Dealing directly with these issues in advance in an organized and professional approach remains the best insurance policy against sibling or cousin rivalry disrupting the family firm.

Why petty conflicts morphed into sibling rivalries? Without a doubt, the blame falls squarely on the leader. Many founders have a tendency to choose the “Do Nothing” option or carelessly select an unqualified, inexperienced family consultant. The former deals with the founder’s reluctance (procrastination) to move ahead by putting off important things because he believes he has time to do them later. On the other hand, choosing the wrong consultant can lead to ineffective planning and zero execution where the children are forced to sign the documents and the family led by its leader is left to implement and enforce the pre-agreed rules.

For many consultants that failed to effect the transition, the culprit lies in your limited experience related to corporate best practices, making your governance initiative ineffective in carrying out solutions to manage any emotion- or strategy-based work-based) conflict.