Látuxarin

Cærulean Group world headquarters, Valēka

A látuxarin (/lˠaʊ.tˠuː.χˠa.rɪn/; literally “capital clan”) is a type of business group in Kiravia composed of of numerous corporate units, subsidiaries, and affiliates diversified across multiple sectors and controlled by a specially-constituted trust entity.

A distinguishing feature of the classic látuxarin is that interest in the controlling trust entity and membership of its board (kirstuv) is held wholly or substantially by several “founding families” ( livnáridanrinya ) who contributed capital to the original venture from which the larger conglomerate grew. The governing document that establishes the trust entity – known as a charter (wordhere) or covenant (wordthere) – is drafted with the familial nature of the interested parties in mind, and contains provisions that incorporate (or supersede) the families’ applicable customary law(s) with regard to matters such as inheritance, seniority, majority, kinship, marriage, and disownment. The charters are crafted to balance the interests of the founding families and other parties, provide mechanisms for resolution of inter- and intra-familial disputes, and maintain the integrity and value of the trust and its assets without involving the civil courts. This governance arrangement differentiates látuxarin from otherwise similar conglomerates like the Caphirian sodesteri, which are typically owned and/or controlled by a single individual or prædium, as well as from conglomerates subordinated to publicly-traded holding companies or private holding companies organised under more standard company law.

Látuxarin originated in the 1940s and 1950s AD on the territory of the Kiravian Remnant, and were instrumental in realising the exiled Federalist government’s programme of rapid export-led industrial growth and modernisation. Those látuxarin that survived to see Kiravian Reunification were major beneficiaries of the privatisation of the former Kiravian Union’s state-owned assets, and were similarly major contributors to national reconstruction and the revitalisation of the Mainland economy, while also receiving much blame for the negative effects of industrial restructuring on Second and Third Kirav. Though some aspects of the látuxarin model have changed since the 1990s due to reforms in competition law, the maturation of the market economy, and wider global economic trends, they remain important pillars of the Kiravian economy in terms of productivity, exports, and employment, and indeed some post-reunification concerns like IXCO Digital and Paramount Atrassic have consciously emulated the látuxarin approach to integration and corporate governance.

History

Background

Large, conglomerated business groups pursuing a wide range of activities were far from unprecedented in the history of Kiravian capitalism: Colonial mercantile companies like the Bay Trading Company and Kerēgulan Merchants of the Tropics wielded nearly sovereign power while competing with one another and their Burgundine counterparts in everything from plantation agriculture to land speculation to mercenary services. The ice lords and rail barons of the 19th and early 20th centuries accumulated complex webs of companies in family hands much as the livnáridanrinya would decades later, which is wholly unsurprising as many of the latter were sons and grandsons of the former.

The látuxarin, however, is a distinct and historically contingent phenomenon, a product of the unusual and difficult circumstances of the Kiravian Remnant and the manner in which its élite set out to harnass its few remaining advantages in order to give it a chance at survival.

Destructive as the unrest leading up to the Kiravian Civil War and the course of the war itself had been, the prolonged crisis gave Kiravia’s wealthier classes enough fear and uncertainty to move many of their assets overseas for safekeeping, and enough time to actually accomplish this. As early as Élív 1931 furniture, jewellery, objets d’art, bullion, and other sweet lucre from the stately manor houses of South Kirav began appearing on the wharves of Venceia in crates addressed to distant cousins of their owners who feared peasant revolts. By 1933 law and order had grown so fragile in the major cities and banditry so rampant in the hinterland that banks and endowed institutions were scrambling to move as much of their reserves as possible offshore. The Caphirian banking system, envy of the world, was the haven of choice for more liquid assets. That wealth which was tied up in chattels went, if at all possible, to the Colonies to avoid trouble with customs, though as the tide of the war turned more decisively against the Federalists the propertied classes did not hesitate to put their treasures and themselves on any ship with a berth, even if bound for Burgundie. This flurry of capital flight was of course a boon to bandits red and otherwise, and it was not uncommon for shipments to be stolen, lost in transit, or impounded by foreign authorities, but in the end a very significant share of the nation’s wealth had safely crossed the Odoneru before the Socialist victory in 1935.

After the failure of the Farravonian Counterrevolution and their final expulsion from the mainland, the Federalist government survived, but in a manifestly unenviable position. Having lost control (incomplete and unstable though it had been of late) of its metropolitan territory, the vast majority of its population, the lion’s share of its resources, and nearly all of its industrial base, the Federalists were left in possession of a constellation of colonies, most of them islands, scattered about the world. The fact that these colonies had little in the way of industry and therefore little in the way of an urban proletariat meant they had never wavered in their political loyalty, but it left the government to which they had been loyal with a limited capacity to defend them.

The Kiravian Remnant had natural resources, but not on the scale of any territorially-intact state. What it did have was a reasonably skilled and productive workforce enriched by considerable émigré talent, the goodwill of kindred nations and anti-communist powers, and a decent amount of capital. Understanding that their cause was lost without a strong economy, the Federalist authorities organised a National Development Commission to implement its economic plans.

Formation (1939-1953)

The formation of a látuxarin would begin with the identfication by the National Development Commission of an economic niche that needed to be filled as part of the grand development vision, the development of a preliminary prospectus for a company filling this niche outlying its opportunities, growth potential, challenges, potential forms of state aid, and estimated necessary starting capital. High-level Federalist officials, including not only the relevant Collegiate executives but also Rump Stanora delegates, influential pro-régime military figures, ostensibly private citizens, and dignitaries as important as Prime Executive Kæśek himself, would then refer to this prospectus while courting investor-founders.

Coscivian cultural norms and the nature of the economy at the time meant that Kiravia had vanishingly few high-net-worth individuals, and this had been the case even before the Civil War. Most accumulated wealth was thus held by kinship groups - extended families (dóntra), lineages, septs, and clans (xarin), and its disposal was thus often governed by the particularities of Coscivian customary law as practiced by the ethnosocial community to which the family (or clan, etc.) belonged. This is why the Federalists needed to look to wealthy families for financial backing and why the governing covenants of látuxarin trusts are crafted to address matters related to internal family affairs and customary law. A successful venture required investment by multiple such families because, even if one family might be able to fully fund one on their own, few of the recently dislocated émigrés were willing to dedicate such a large share of their wealth to a high-risk project.

The families that the Federalists looked to as partners in this effort mostly fit a particular profile. They were mostly émigrés, ensuring that they had deeply-held anti-communist sentiments and a rational self-interest in national reunification in order to return to their homes and resume what immovable assets they had left behind there. Most hailed from the major port cities of Great Kirav, particularly its eastern seaboard, and had been active in the antebellum high society circles there. Some were Southerners with more feudal-aristocratic roots or pretensions, and fewer were Northerners of the same background. A minority were not émigrés at all but rather colonial magnates who had made their fortunes off of land and trade in Crona and Vallos. Among this latter category, most were Empire Loyalists and had lived in Cape Town until Capetian independence, after which they resettled in Æonara due to fear of confiscations.

These predominantly bourgeois families were valuable for their own funds, of course, and in a fair number of cases also for their business expertise (though many were multigenerational heirs to family fortunes and expected to assume roles as silent partners), but also for their potential to secure additional funding from other sources. Founding families of mercantile background usually had networks of wealthy contacts in Levantia, Sarpedon, Tierrador, and Paulastra. Many of the southern aristocrats had family and friends among the Hekuvian Coscivian community in Caphiria, and 'ins' with the Latin élite of that country. A strong lobby in Caphiria was necessary because that is where much of the white émigré wealth had been stored, but it was also seen as a critical diplomatic and commercial partner, being the nearest of the leading economies to the new national core in Æonara.

Potato.

Reunification Era (1985-2000)

After national reunification was achieved, the látuxarin acted quickly to stake out positions in the newly expanded domestic market, and continued to serve as instruments of the administration's economic policy. As the former Kiravian Union underwent large-scale privatisation, the látuxarin were leading purchasers of privatised assets, and were in many cases the government's preferred partners in this process, especially where industries with national security significance or geostrategic value were concerned. The opposition People's Alliance, spiritual successor to the defunct Kirosocialist Party, was loudly critical of the látuxarin, and frequently harangued and caricatured them and their alleged cronyism in campaign materials.

Most privatisation acquisitions by látuxarin were open market operations, but some, particularly of larger and more sensitive state-owned enterprises, were negotiated with the Kiravian government and came with conditions for the conglomerates regarding land improvements, reclamation liability, pensions, and more. Some obliged the látuxarin to move their bases of corporate activity to specific states and localities on the Mainland, though most had already begun planning relocation on their own initiative. Between 1985 and 1995, the majority of látuxarin migrated their apex headquarters or the headquarters' of some or all principal subsidiaries (depending on their internal structure) to Great Kirav from Æonara. This was a major contributing factor to the broader post-reunification economic downturn in Æonara and some other regions of the former Remnant.

Since 2000

Látuxarin remain important actors in the Kiravian economy, though since AD 2000 their way of doing business has evolved in response to technological, world-economic, and regulatory changes, and they have become less prominent than they had been under the Remnant due to the rise of non-látuxarin enterprises and, to a lesser extent, stagnation and obsolescence of látuxarin-dominated industries.

As the Kiravian economy has successfully (at least overall) transitioned to an open market economy and subsequently 'matured' with the growth of a robust financial sector, rising living standards, and domestic consumer demand, practices associated with the state-capitalist development model that gave birth to the látuxarin have increasingly been called into question by free-market activists such as the Liberal Federalist-Republicans. Overt state/corporate collusion has fallen out of fashion, new laws have required much greater transparency in government contracting, and reforms to competition law have constrained the abilities of látuxarin to maintain effective monopolies and make creative use of subsidiaries to artificially shore up competitive advantage.

Those Látuxarin whose holdings lay heavily in traditional manufacturing have had to struggle with the trend toward flexibility in that sector and with keeping abreast of the latest production technology. Export markets for some Kiravian manufactures have contracted as these countries have developed their domestic industries or reconfigured their trade policies. Certain products that were once major revenue streams for látuxarin have simply become obsolete, such as the typewriters once manufactured by Maxinema Corporation, a Group F subsidiary. However, látuxarin have been able to compensate for these and other losses by adapting their manufacturing business models, acquiring profitable companies, and diversifying into services and other sectors.

The characteristic ownership structure of the látuxarin creates, by design, a disparity between share ownership and corporate voting power to the advantage of the entrenched founding families and 1940s/1950s investors represented in the controlling trust and to the disadvantage of other shareholders. By itself and with the implication that this disparity tends to encourage low dividend payouts, companies that form part of a látuxarin complex are less attractive to new investors, particularly foreign ones, though shares in such companies do feature in the portfolios of certain types of investors with more long-term and passive strategies.

Structure and Cohesion

The organisational and financial architecture of látuxarin vary. Some approximate the nested umbrella structure common among conglomerates internationally, but most are more complicated.

Identity and Culture

The entrenched familial character of the látuxarin, enhanced by the tendency of the founding families of a látuxarin to come from similar backgrounds to one another, has given many of the conglomerates a more adjective identity than would ordinarily be expected for a large corporate group.

Today most remaining látuxarin conduct business in Kiravic, the prevailing language of interstate commerce nationwide, but some continue to operate using the language of their founders, especially those that moved their headquarters to the Mainland after 1985 and settled in a region where that language is spoken.

The ties that látuxarin have with the foreign countries that contributed their initial capital to them continue to be significant. Conglomerates are known to lobby the Kiravian government heavily on relations with their benefactors’ country.

The prominence of Caphirian investors and people of Caphirian descent and affiliation in látuxarin has verbed a strong influence of Caphirian business culture on the Kiravian.

Founding Families

Látuxarin families were known during the remnant as the "founding families" or "new founding families" (inox livnáridanrinya). In the context of 1940s Æonara, this term carried additional meaning, as the aristocratic families descended from very early Kiravian colonists in Æonara also referred to themselves as the "founding families" (albeit in Æonaran Coscivian, gradnidarân). The use of the same term for the haute-bourgeois émigrés at the helm of the new industrial economy evoked the tensions of the era as the worlds of émigré-dominated state-capitalist New Æonara and the founding-family dominated agrarian Old Æonara collided.

Most livnáridanrin were drawn from the antebellum bourgeoisie of the principal Great Kiravian coastal and lakeside trading cities, such as Valēka, Primóra, Bérasar, Saar-Silverda, Escarda, and Ilminsar. Some, however, were colonial mercantile magnates who had made their fortunes in the 17th and 18th centuries and already exerted great political and social influence in the territories that became the Remnant. A much smaller share were of aristocratic and timocratic backgrounds, whether on the Mainland or in the Colonies. In terms of ethno-social subgroup affiliation (tuva) many livnáridanrin belonged to market-dominant ethnic groups, or to caste groups with strong mercantile associations, such as the Kēregulans, Markuvid Paisonics, Kalvertans, Eshavians, Lúnstans, and Kravalite Kir.

In recognition of their services to the nation, families that provided capital to these business ventures were proclaimed wordhere wordthere. This status was noted on their household registration and internal passports, conferring preferential treatment and and certain special privileges on them, not unlike the United Empire Loyalist honours bestown upon loyalist returnees from the Cape following that nation's independence in AD 1901. In 1949 the government-in-exile of Kaviska State, which maintained the household registrations of a plurality of livnáridanrin so honoured, embossed the record coversheets with decorative gold leaf borders. Even today in Sirana, Valēka, and Primóra high society circles, "gold leaf lineage" is a byword for the generationally super-rich, regardless of whether they were involved in látuxarin or honoured as wordhere wordthere.

Examples of Látuxarin

Classical Látuxarin

Current

Group	Livnáridarinya	Major businesses
Iribisuv Industries	Vakabśin Trikūlèv Ilukvitmar	Materials, Electrical equipment (inc. control valves), Chemicals, Pulp and paper
Cærulean Group	Kalēdon Candrin Lésağtin	Shipbuilding (inc. submarines); Civil and marine engineering, Maritime salvage, Offshore drilling equipment and services, Shipping and global logistics, General trading (inc. energy trading, commodities), robotics, insurance, real estate, retail trade
Black Domino Group	Xosipelan Nív-Ivannen Grinnír	Steel; many others.
Group 4	bin Absur

Former

Group and Fate	Livnáridarinya	Major businesses
Exgen Became an ALO in 1963	Perxlórin Géraltuv Anakletuv	Automotive, Heavy equipment, Civil engineering, Industrial machinery
Group 12 Merged in 1968	Ikobarkrān Pirellin	Chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food processing, scientific equipment, refrigerated overland shipping

Neo-Látuxarin

Corporate groups here listed were formed after 1985 but share key characteristics of classical látuxarin and are referred to as látuxarin by the media.

Group	Main Sector	Information
Paramount Atrassic	Diversified	Parent is a closed joint-stock company and the largest Kiravian private company by revenue. Balance of voting shares is held by families of the founding management team and associated foundations, remainder by other institutional investors, mostly private equity.
IXCO Digital	Information technology	Parent is an open (public) joint-stock company, but structure of subsidiary relations is similar to classical látuxarin.

Para-Látuxarin

Tracing their history to Age of the Sail colonial mercantile companies, companies listed here restructured themselves along the same lines as classical látuxarin during the Sunderance and are referred to as látuxarin by the media, but may not be family-owned.

Group	Main Sector	Information
Bay Trading Company	Agrifood	Flat concern; multiple tiers of subsidiaries are nested under few "principal" corporations linked by a common apex management group, cross-shareholding, supply relationships, and a common strategy and branding. Not controlled by any family or group of families.
KMT Group	Generalised trading	Parent company operates under a 17th-century charter, with ownership distributed among several ethnic Kerēgulan Coscivian merchant clans. In 1950, the controlling clans entered into a compact modelled after látuxarin trust instruments to govern the exercise of their voting rights and maintain the integrity of their ownership interest.

See also

• Sodesteri