Is there a stigma against being an heir of a large-ish family business in Singapore?
My father founded a construction firm that gradually pivoted into real estate investments over a 30-year career. He has two children, my older brother and me.
My older brother is highly educated and substantially older than I am. He went to the best IP school, then he attended Princeton for undergrad and has an MBA from Columbia. I was sent to Australia after doing badly for O-levels and I graduated with an accounting degree from Monash.
My father is sort of old school. Because I’m a girl and the younger sibling, he doesn’t believe that I should have anything to do with the business. After many an argument with him, I resigned to it as the way life just is. My dad has never refused money whenever I have asked for it. He never skimped on my education.
More importantly, my brother treats me very well. He always pays for everything whenever I go out with him. He also contributed to my husband’s student loans when my dad stood his ground and refused to help. I reasoned with myself that I already received far more than I should have had given my dad’s culture.
My father got into some health issues recently and his greatest wish is for my brother to take over the family business. My brother, now working in New York City, refuses to grant him his wish. The only reason that I have ever heard from him is the fact that he doesn’t want to be perceived as someone who inherited a fortune and did nothing to deserve it. The AUM of my father’s company, just for context, is well into the high 8-figures (this was a pre-Covid estimate). To me, it seems natural for a child to take over his parent’s business. It may not have squared with me that it had to be the first male child, but I never saw anything wrong with having a child for an heir. I attended a swanky foundation studies program in Melbourne and I have met many Singaporeans and Malaysians who are in-line to take over massive family businesses. If I had a successful business, my instinct is also to pass it on to the people I trust the most, in all likelihood it will be my children.
I really can’t be bothered what my brother decides to do. I just think his reason for doing it is a little puzzling.
Is there really a stigma in Singapore against children taking over family businesses? I see children taking over hawker stalls all the time. I also see children taking over wet market stalls, children taking over frozen seafood businesses, air-con service businesses, distributorships, and these are just the ones I know personally. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal to take over a business that someone genuinely wants to give you should it?
What do you guys think?