Scaling the Family Firm — Don Aldo's Transition

A four-round, advanced family-business simulation set inside Alimentos Don Aldo S.A., a 35-year-old family food manufacturer in Rosario, Argentina (240 employees, one plant, AR$9,600M ≈ US$8.0M revenue, 11% EBITDA margin, conservative 0.8x leverage). The country's second-largest supermarket chain offers a transformational national private-label frozen listing worth AR$4,200M in incremental annual revenue — but it demands doubling frozen capacity (AR$1,500M CapEx), 75-day payment terms that trap ~AR$860M of working capital, EDI ordering and a dedicated key-account team. The catch: founder Don Aldo (67) still personally approves every purchase order over AR$2M, holds the only banking signature, and keeps every supplier and buyer relationship in his head — and he is scheduled for heart surgery in June. Free cash flow is only AR$700M/year, and the family has no shareholders' agreement, no protocol and no defined successor between daughter Lucía (commercial) and son Tomás (plant). Playing the founder-CEO and family council, you (1) DIAGNOSE the scaling gap, separating the capability gap (management depth) from the capital gap (CapEx + working capital) and estimating the cash runway in months; (2) PROFESSIONALIZE management — decide which decision rights to delegate, whether to hire an external GM/COO, formalize a management committee, reset PO-approval thresholds and banking signatories, and build a key-account team, each at a cost and a management-depth score; (3) FINANCE the growth without losing control — mix bank debt (leasing the tunnel), supplier/retailer finance, retained earnings and a regional PE fund's AR$1,200M-for-30% minority offer, modelling leverage, cash runway and owner control, then recommend go / scale-down / decline on the contract; and (4) OPEN THE SUCCESSION QUESTION — design a 24-month governance roadmap (family protocol, shareholders' agreement, family council, board independence, a development path for Lucía and Tomás) before the surgery, not after. The math rewards transferring real decision rights before signing, a financing mix that keeps the runway above zero without over-leveraging or over-diluting, PE terms that are actually negotiated, and proactive succession — and it punishes the six classic errors: signing the full contract while Aldo remains the single signatory, all-debt financing that ignores 75-day terms, hiring a GM with no delegated authority, deferring succession past the surgery, accepting the PE stake on headline percentage alone, and scaling down into the arms of the Córdoba rival. Final KPIs track Cash Runway (months), Management Depth, Owner Control, and Family Alignment — drawing on Guillermo Fraile's (IAE) lens that scaling a family firm is a leadership transition in which family relationships are a strategic asset.