Ensuring Your Family’s Future: The Alagil Family Office

Muhammad Alagil was a second-generation leader in the well-known Alagil Family Group of businesses in Saudi Arabia and co-founder and chairman of its family office, Jarir Company for Commercial Investments (Jarir Investments). The case opens in 2021 with Alagil pondering whether or not to allow family members of the next generations aged 35 and over to spin off their pieces of the trust and set out on their own. This change would have been a massive departure from the state of mind he and his four brothers shared for the past decades: Why would anyone leave and shrink the pie? He was confident that none of the third generation (G3) would leave but he knew there was no guarantee they would stay either. He also knew that, when their time came, a portion of G4 members (the eldest of whom was 12 years old) would likely exercise that right and leave. With the sustainability of the family office in mind, would it be disastrous if some members left? The case discusses whether it was the G2 members’ responsibility to entice future generations to stay and, if so, how? If not, should they at least come up with a mechanism to ensure that future generations would survive on their own?