ACCORDING to the book of Genesis, Enoch (or Henok), son of Cain and father of Methuselah, walked the Earth for 365 years and then ascended to heaven without dying. Inspired by this feat, a club was formed in France in 1981 that took his name. Les Hénokiens is a fraternity of companies that are at least 200 years old, have stayed in the control of one family throughout, are financially healthy, “modern” and are still run by a family member.

Each year representatives of the 33 member companies, from seven countries, gather for three days of fun and discussion. This year's host was Ditta Bortolo Nardini, an Italian grappa distillery founded in 1779. The nine members of Britain's Tercentenarians Club, founded in 1970 for firms at least 300 years old that still have a connection to the founding family, make do with an annual lunch.

The oldest member of Les Hénokiens is Hoshi, a Japanese inn founded in Komatsu in 718. Run by Zengoro Hoshi, the 46th generation of the family to be in charge, the firm's motto is unusually practical: “Take care of fire, learn from water, co-operate with nature”. But, according to “Centuries of Success”, published last year by William O'Hara, there is an even older company, also Japanese. Kongo Gumi, founded by a Korean in Osaka in 578, is a builder of Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and castles—and now also offices, apartment buildings and private houses. Both are family businesses.

The oldest European family business, according to Mr O'Hara and Peter Mandel in Family Business magazine (see table), is Château de Goulaine, a vineyard in France's Loire valley that dates from 1000—and also boasts a museum and butterfly farm. Britain's oldest family business, founded in Huddersfield in 1541, is John Brooke & Sons, a textile-maker that helped clothe Britain's bravest during the battle of Trafalgar and the second world war, but has now abandoned manufacturing and turned its mills into a business park.

Not surprisingly, the oldest family firms in the United States are a bit younger. Zildjian Cymbal, of Norwell, Massachusetts, purveyor of cymbals and drumsticks to many of the world's greatest percussionists, was founded in 1623. But that was in Constantinople; the family did not emigrate to America until 1909. A more authentic choice is the Tuttle Farm, which grows strawberries and vegetables in New Hampshire, and runs a small shop. It is currently run by the 11th generation of the family.

Ancient, but maybe not commercially

Yet it is not easy to say with certainty whether such examples are really old, continuous businesses or, rather, latterday firms that were once trade associations, state organisations or, say, religious communities that turned commercial at some stage in their lives. Is, for example, Château de Goulaine really a 1,000-year-old business or a fine old castle that has only fairly recently taken to selling wine and displaying butterflies? The Shore Porters' Society, now a transport firm, whose lorries can be seen all over Europe, was founded in 1498, but for much of its history it was a semi-public body controlled by the town of Aberdeen, only gaining full independence in 1850. How long has it been a genuine business?

Calculating the age of big complex companies—many of which are public, not family owned—is arguably just as tricky, for many of these firms have grown through multiple acquisitions. That makes it hard to know to what extent they are truly descended from their oldest part. Harsco, for instance, a big American engineering and industrial-services company, can proudly trace parts of its operations to 1742, when a firm called Taylor-Wharton began life as a colonial iron forge. But Taylor-Wharton, whose early products included cannon balls for George Washington's continental army, was not absorbed into what is now called Harsco until 1953.

Today's biggest, best-known companies are mostly spotty youths by comparison with the ancient firms listed above—not least because their main activities have become possible only since the industrial revolution. Microsoft was not born until 1975; even General Electric cannot trace its roots further back than 1876. Most of the world's corporate elderly are in very old-economy industries, such as agriculture, hospitality and building. Of these, perhaps only banking has remained at the forefront of the world's corporate elite—and a few of the world's biggest banks can fairly claim to have reached a ripe old age. Britain's Lloyds TSB, for example, can trace itself back to a bank established in Birmingham in 1765 by a John Taylor and a Sampson Lloyd. Citigroup's family tree goes back to the City Bank of New York, founded in 1812.

Ars longa, business brevis

In “The Living Company”, Arie de Geus nominates Stora as the company that, for probably longer than any other, “has had the character of a publicly owned company from its very beginnings”. Stora began life as a copper mine in Sweden in 1288 and, 710 years later, merged to become Stora Enso, a paper, packaging and timber firm.

The debate about which company is the oldest is likely to endure longer than the firms themselves. What is clear is that corporate longevity is highly unusual. One-third of the firms in the Fortune 500 in 1970 no longer existed in 1983, killed by merger, acquisition, bankruptcy or break-up. According to Leslie Hannah, a business historian at the University of Tokyo, the average “half-life” of big companies—that is, the time taken to die by half of the firms in the world's top 100 by market capitalisation in any given year—was 75 years during the 20th century. For small companies, most studies suggest a half-life in single figures. Corporate infant mortality is particularly high; the first year is the hardest.

How, then, have a few elderly firms succeeded in defying the corporate life-cycle? For most of them, luck has played a part, says Mr O'Hara. But he also identifies several other factors that have helped family firms in particular. Primogeniture has often ensured that a firm did not get torn apart by feuding heirs during generational succession—a common problem now that the eldest son no longer automatically inherits the lot in most countries. In general, unity and trust within the family have been vital. Long-lived firms have also been progressive about taking women into management—albeit usually out of necessity. And they have often been willing to take on new managers through legal adoption when the older generation's seed has fallen on fallow ground.

One-third of the firms in the Fortune 500 in 1970 no longer existed in 1983, killed by merger, acquisition, bankruptcy or break-up

John Davis, of the Harvard Business School, is writing a book on the few family firms that do not succumb to the old rule of shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. He says that three factors lie behind longevity: “By the end of every generation, family firms need to have built a reservoir of trust, pride and money so that the next generation has enough of them to maintain the momentum of the business and the spirit of the family.” Surviving succession is often a huge test. But most older firms have also had to evolve in order to keep pace with the times. Kikkoman, for example, founded in 1630 and now the world's leading maker of soy sauce, has expanded into food flavouring and, latterly, into biotech. This, says Mr Davis, requires a boldness that may be possible only with plenty of trust, pride and money. It also needs a good grasp of the firm's core competence: in this instance, knowing lots about yeast, a common factor in all of Kikkoman's activities.

This point is echoed by Jim Collins, a co-author of the enduring “Built to Last—Successful Habits of Visionary Companies”. Survivors, he says, are very good at, on the one hand, following a set of unchanging principles and, on the other, separating what they do and how they do it from “who they are”. Over hundreds of years, the firm must hold its fundamentals dear, yet constantly change, he says.

Mr Collins is often criticised for seeing too much virtue in survival. After all, many companies whose products have become obsolete have blown a fortune trying to find ways to stay alive—the corporate equivalent of an old codger squandering the children's inheritance on untested medicine when what was really required was a graceful exit. Certainly, Mr O'Hara's list of the world's oldest firms contains some gems—Kikkoman, Sumitomo (general trading), Berry Brothers & Rudd (wine merchants), Taittinger (champagne), Beretta (a gunmaker)—but also many that are unremarkable except for their age.

So is longevity really something to celebrate? Not according to Mr Collins: surely the point of being in business is to do something remarkable, not merely to survive? A lot of mediocre companies endure for many decades, he says, but “it's like running a ten-hour marathon. What's the point?” Something for the Tercentenarians to chew over during their next annual lunch.