SCB WEALTH Identifies Internal Family Conflicts as the Top Risk in Business Succession. Advocates Family Constitutions and Family Offices for Seamless Multi-Generational Wealth Transfer

SCB WEALTH hosted a seminar titled “Reframing Business Succession: Protecting Family Wealth from Internal Storms” under the event SCB WEALTH: Holistic Wealth Forum 2025. The discussion emphasized often-overlooked internal family risks and outlined strategies to safeguard wealth through family constitutions and family offices, ensuring smooth and sustainable business succession amid growing economic fragility and increasingly complex family dynamics.

Ms. Sutida Mongkolsuthree, Chief Executive Officer of Synnex (Thailand) PCL, stated that internal family factors, including mutual understanding, clear goals, and trust, are critical for smooth succession. Trust is hard to build and easy to lose, yet it is the foundation of business transfer. Once trust is established, respect for previous leadership and creating space for the team to demonstrate capability are essential. Decision-making authority should be granted to proven successors to ensure stability under new management. One key driver of Synnex’s continued growth has been encouraging team participation and innovation, leading to expansion into new business segments in recent years.

Mr. Nitikan Ramanat, Partner at Baker & McKenzie Ltd., noted that most family business conflicts arise from the absence of documented and mutually accepted rules. Verbal agreements alone can create vulnerabilities that lead to future disputes. Drafting a family constitution is more than producing a document. It is a process that helps all family members understand roles, principles, and boundaries in business management. Some provisions may carry legal weight, such as non-compete clauses or founder exit guidelines, which reduce ambiguity and prevent future conflicts. Additionally, many families focus on wealth accumulation but neglect fair benefit sharing (Wealth Enjoyment), which, if undefined, often becomes the root of future disputes.

Mr. Niti Nerngchamnong, First Senior Vice President of Wealth Planning and Family Office at Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), explained that most problems stem not from business operations but from generational gaps and reluctance to communicate. A family office serves as a neutral intermediary, bridging generational understanding, structuring appropriate legal and financial frameworks, protecting wealth systematically, and resolving internal issues privately through arbitration—a closed system enforceable even on overseas assets.

SCB WEALTH prioritizes developing family office services to assist clients in structuring asset transfers, defining family business governance, drafting family constitutions, and implementing arbitration systems to safeguard confidentiality and prevent family disputes from becoming public. SCB encourages Thai business families to start internal conversations today to identify true needs, establish mutually accepted rules, and strengthen governance structures—with the family office as a key partner in ensuring wealth and business continuity across generations.