How the family business is coping with the challenges due to the pandemic

On October 22, 2020, Mr. Victor Gugushev, Partner at Gugushev & Partners Law Office, took part in Business Start program of Bloomberg TV's commenting on how the family business in Bulgaria is coping with the challenges that is facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Victor Gugushev, who is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Family Business Network - Bulgaria, pointed out that as part of the general business climate, family businesses suffer from difficulties of diverse intensity depending on their business sectors.

He stressed that due to the greater emotional attachment of owners to their legacy business, more serious measures have been taken in these circles to limit the spread of the infection, such as minimizing the flow of people in offices and conducting systematic PCR tests among employees. Mr. Gugushev pointed out that every crisis is an oppoertunity for development in the future and the changed conditions have forced the business to transform in the direction of digitalization and looking for opportunities at foreign markets. As for the difficulties facing the family business, he highlighted the administration of processes as the most significant - a serious financial challenge, especially for smaller companies.

Mr. Victor Gugushev expressed his observation that although measures to deal with the crisis were proposed to the public and business at an early stage, the support to the liquidity of companies is quite late. He stressed that under one of the most effective support programs - the government's measure 60/40, which has a simplified administrative procedure and fast financial assistance, so far only BGN 300 million of the total allocated BGN 1.1 billion have been used. Given that Bulgaria follows the practices of other European countries, he predicts that there will be a budget for 2021 as well.

Watch the full interview of the lawyer. Gugushev on this link: http://bit.ly/VG_Bloomberg