Administration February 8, 2005

Survey: Woman-Owned Firms Do More With Less

August 26, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Working with a woman-owned family business may not just be fashionable, in may also be an ultimately profitable corporate policy, a new survey found.
Reported by

According to the survey sponsored by MassMutual Financial Group and Babson College, the woman-owned family firms are not only a growing segment of the US economy, compared to companies run by men they are:

  • on average more productive
  • a decade younger
  • more likely to follow good corporate governance policies
  • more likely to have their leadership succession plans finalized.

According to the study, woman-owned family businesses have become substantial enterprises in the US, with average annual revenues of $26.9 million in 2002 and with some reporting annual sales as high as $1 billion. Most woman-owned family firms are in the second generation of operation.

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Survey highlights about US woman-owned businesses include:

  • they have increased by 37% in the last five years to 15.6%
  • they place greater proportionate emphasis on social responsibility – directing their philanthropic focus toward educational and community organizations
  • While female-owned family businesses are smaller in size – over $26 million in annual revenues compared to approximately   $30 million for male-owned counterparts – they generate sales with fewer employees: 26 workers compared to 50 at male-owned firms.   This means that female-owned family businesses are 1.7 times more productive than male-owned family firms.
  • are more than six times as likely to have a woman chief executive officer (roughly half are led by females).   Woman-owned family businesses are typically 10 years younger than those owned by men and female owners assumed leadership at an age five years older than their male counterparts.
  • they focus more carefully on CEO succession planning and are more likely to have chosen a follow-on chief executive.
  • they experience greater family loyalty, agreement with goals, and pride in the business.   They have a 40% lower rate of family member attrition.
  • the are twice as likely to employ women family members full time and are three times as likely to employ more than one female family member full time.
  • tend to be more fiscally conservative.    More female-owned family businesses carry less or no debt – other than trade payables – than male-owned firms.  

The survey covered family businesses at least 10 years old with sales volume in excess of $1 million who have at least two officers or directors with the same last name. The latest study is available at www.babson.edu/cwl .

Compliance February 7, 2005

Pension Fund "Pillager" Draws Nine-Year Sentence

February 7, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Daniel S. Geiger, 53, was sentenced to a nine-year sentence last week for taking $6.7 million from the pension funds of now-defunct Standard-Coosa-Thatcher Yarns Inc.
Reported by

>Federal Judge Curtis Collier on Friday afternoon said he was giving a sentence higher than the normal range “to deter other people who would abuse trust like this.”

>The jury also ordered Geiger to forfeit his personal residence, which prosecutors said was bought with $590,000 in pension funds. He also was ordered to forfeit equipment, several vehicles, and a monetary judgment of $781,000.  

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>The company’s former owner and president, Kenneth H. Combs Jr., pleaded guilty in the case to 31 counts of mail fraud, embezzlement, graft, conspiracy to launder money, and money laundering before his suicide just prior to his April 2004 sentencing.   A third man in the indictment, British investor Roderick B. Askew, remains a fugitive, according to the AP.  

>Combs had been indicted in November 2002 on criminal counts involving multiple schemes to recklessly invest the assets of the pension plan. Combs received more than $155,400 in kickbacks from the reckless investments, and also converted pension assets for his personal use.   The two pension plans, which covered 771 participants, lost $11,670,491 as a result of the improper investments.

>Prosecutors have said Geiger bribed Combs, who also was fiduciary of the employee retirement plan, with kickbacks of pension money loaned to or invested in Geiger’s company, USA Mining in California.  

>Prosecutor Gary Humble said Geiger and Kenneth S. Combs had “pillaged” the trust fund, and that there had been testimony in Geiger’s lengthy trial about his getting $669,000 in cash, $71,000 for limousines, $275,000 for chartered planes, and $51,000 for hotels from the pension fund proceeds, according to the Chattanoogan.

>Geiger was convicted after a trial that lasted over two weeks and included some 40 witnesses – mainly defense – of three counts of wire fraud, three counts of kickbacks from an employee pension fund, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and six counts of money laundering.   The prosecutor said the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation had stepped in to help the SCT pensioners, but he said not all were made whole, including one who lost $100,000.  

>Geiger must begin making restitution at 10% of his earnings when he gets out of prison.   He asked that he be allowed out for 60 days to gather up money to begin the restitution, but the judge rejected that idea.  

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