Succession scramble grips Italian family firms after COVID scare

'Italian entrepreneurs often tighten their grip on their firms as they get older, fearing there may not be a future without them at the helm,' he said. Yet a year into the pandemic, Giacomo Carlo Archiutti sold 30% of the kitchen manufacturer he founded in 1967 in Italy's industrial north east to a private equity firm. Pre-pandemic the Archiuttis would have stood out as a rarity, an Italian family-owned business welcoming an external investor as a first step to addressing succession planning.