Article: Family firms start to share their riches. (Middle East)

The placement of shares in the new Al-Zamil closed joint-stock company has started the ball rolling towards the eventual flotation of a major Gulf industrial group. Peter Kemp looks at why family firms are going public and the barriers that still inhibit the process

The diversified family firm is the archetypal private business in the Middle East. Many of today's mightiest business groups have grown from modest origins in a single generation. Often founded by a merchant who went on to become local agent and distributor for foreign companies, they invariably grew by moving into construction, real estate or light manufacturing as the region boomed on the back of rising ...

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