Latest / Family Business Stories with Fexingo: Succession, Legacy, and Multi-Generational Companies / How the Beretta Family Built a 500-Year Gun Empire
Transcript
- Lucas: So the Beretta family has been making guns since 1526. That is not a typo. That is seventy years before Shakespeare was born, and more than a century before Isaac Newton. Luna: 1526... that is almost 500 years. How many generations are we talking? Lucas: Fifteen generations. The company was founded when Bartolomeo Beretta, a master barrel maker in the small town of Gardone Val Trompia in northern Italy, was paid 296 ducats by the Venetian Arsenal for 185 arquebus barrels. They have the receipt. Luna: They still have the receipt from 1526? That is incredible. Lucas: They do. It is kept in the company archives, and it is considered the founding document. What is remarkable is not just that the company survived, but that it remained under family control through plagues, foreign invasions, both world wars, and the rise and fall of dozens of governments. Luna: How did they manage that when so many family businesses fail by the third generation? Lucas: There is a famous statistic — only about 12 percent of family businesses survive to the third generation. Beretta has gone fifteen. The key, I think, is their approach to succession. They have never assumed the eldest son automatically takes over. Each heir has to prove themselves, often outside the company first. Luna: Give me a concrete example. Lucas: Take the current chairman, Franco Gussalli Beretta. His father, Ugo Gussalli Beretta, actually married into the family and took the Beretta name. Franco and his brother Pietro both worked in other industries before joining the family business. Franco spent years in finance and manufacturing outside the company. That outside experience gave them credibility. Luna: So they deliberately avoided raising their kids inside the bubble. Lucas: Exactly. And the family has a written constitution — a governance document that lays out rules for ownership, employment, and dispute resolution. That document has been updated over the centuries, and it prevents the kind of infighting that destroys so many family dynasties. Luna: Was there ever a point where the business nearly collapsed? Lucas: Yes — during World War Two. The factory was in a region that saw heavy fighting, and production was disrupted. But the family had already diversified into other products, like fishing rods and air rifles, which helped them survive peacetime slumps in military demand. After the war, they rebuilt quickly, partly because they had a reputation for quality that the Italian government and NATO both needed. Luna: That diversification — the clothing line, the accessories — that came much later, right? Lucas: Right. The fashion and lifestyle products are a recent development, really taking off in the 1990s. But the core has always been firearms. What is interesting is that they did not chase growth at all costs. They stayed private, never took on outside investors, and kept manufacturing in Italy even when it would have been cheaper to move production elsewhere. Luna: So they traded margin for control. Lucas: Precisely. And that trade-off has worked for nearly five centuries. Their profit margins are not the highest in the industry, but they own the company outright, and they answer to no one but themselves. That long-term thinking is hard to sustain when you have quarterly earnings pressure from shareholders. Luna: It is interesting to contrast that with a company like Colt, which went through multiple bankruptcies and ownership changes. Lucas: Exactly the comparison I was thinking of. Colt was founded in 1855, a relative newcomer, and it has been through Chapter 11 at least twice. Beretta, which is older by three centuries, has never filed for bankruptcy. Part of that is the Italian legal environment — but mostly it is the family's discipline. Luna: What about the challenges today? Regulation, public perception of firearms... Lucas: Those are real. The gun industry faces increasing scrutiny, especially in the United States, which is Beretta's largest market. But the company has positioned itself as a premium, heritage brand — think of it as the Ferrari of firearms. That helps insulate them from some of the political volatility, because their customers are enthusiasts and professionals, not casual buyers. Luna: And they have a strong relationship with military and law enforcement. The U.S. military uses their M9 pistol, or at least they did for decades. Lucas: Right. The M9 contract was a huge deal. Beretta won it in 1985, supplying the standard sidearm for all U.S. armed forces. That contract ran for decades and gave them tremendous credibility. Even though the military has since moved to a new pistol, the brand recognition remains. Luna: You mentioned the family constitution earlier. Can you give a specific rule from it? Lucas: One key rule is that only family members who work in the business can own shares. That prevents non-active relatives from selling to outsiders or demanding dividends that would starve the company of capital. Also, shares cannot be sold to non-family members — if someone wants to exit, the company or other family members have the right of first refusal. Luna: That keeps ownership tight. But it also means younger generations have to decide: do I join the business, or do I take a cash settlement and walk away? Lucas: Exactly. And that clarity helps avoid resentment. If you join, you are committing to the work. If you do not, you are out — but you are compensated fairly. It is a tough approach, but it has preserved unity across fifteen generations. Luna: I want to ask about the name. Franco's last name is Gussalli Beretta. That hyphenated name is a signal, right? Lucas: It is. The family has a tradition of incorporating the Beretta name into the surnames of all descendants, even through the female line. That ensures the brand stays linked to the family identity, no matter who marries whom. It is a small thing, but it reinforces the idea that the business and the family are one. Luna: That is smart. A lot of family businesses lose the connection when daughters marry and their children have a different surname. Lucas: Beretta solved that by making the surname a requirement. It is not just tradition — it is written into the governance rules. Luna: So what is the biggest lesson for other family businesses from the Beretta story? Lucas: I think it is the combination of two things: a willingness to let heirs prove themselves outside the company, and a formal governance structure that limits conflict. Too many family businesses rely on unwritten understandings, and those break down when emotions run high. Luna: And having a constitution that binds everyone, even the founder's great great grandchildren. Lucas: Right. And by the way, if you find these stories useful for thinking about your own business or career, we keep them coming because of listeners who support the show. A couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you have gotten something out of them. Luna: Yeah, it makes a real difference. We do not run ads, so it is just listener support. And it helps us keep digging into stories like this one. Lucas: Back to Beretta — another thing worth noting is how they handled the transition from military to civilian markets after the Cold War. When defense budgets shrank in the 1990s, they doubled down on the sporting and hunting segments, and they invested in new manufacturing technology to stay competitive. Luna: Did they ever consider going public? Lucas: Not seriously. The family has always believed that private ownership allows them to make decisions for the long term. For example, they invested heavily in robotic manufacturing in the early 2000s, which hurt short-term profits but made them one of the most efficient gun makers in the world. A public company might have faced pressure to cut those investments. Luna: It is a fascinating counterpoint to the private-equity model of buying, flipping, and moving on. Lucas: Totally. Beretta is the opposite of that. They are building for the next century, not the next quarter. And that mindset has served them well for 500 years. Luna: One last thing — where does the company stand today, as of mid-2026? Lucas: They are still family-run, still headquartered in Gardone Val Trompia, and still privately held. The current generation is already grooming the sixteenth. The business has expanded into clothing, accessories, and even a line of luxury watches. But the core remains firearms, and they hold a significant share of the global market for shotguns and pistols. Not bad for a company that started with a single barrel order. Luna: And they kept the receipt. Lucas: They kept the receipt. That is the kind of record-keeping that makes a family historian very happy.