In LONDON item, "FACTBOX-News Corp, Ford, Fiat and other family dynasties," please read in first paragraph ...BSkyB Plc ...instead of...BSkyB Plc ... (correcting RIC).
A corrected repetition follows
LONDON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Speculation that Rupert Murdoch's youngest son James will take over the top job at British broadcaster BSkyB Plc reflects a view that at certain companies, family will always come first.
Like News Corp , founding families retain control of a number of the world's top companies. Here is a factbox showing some firms with strong family influence beyond the first generation:
NEWS CORP
BSkyB Chief Executive Tony Ball confirmed on Tuesday he will step down, and analysts say James Murdoch, 30, who runs News Corp's Hong Kong-based broadcaster Star Group, is the odds-on favourite for the job.
Rupert Murdoch built his father's small Australian newspaper business into a global empire spanning newspapers (The Times, The New York Post), films (20th Century Fox), television (Fox, Sky, Star) and books (HarperCollins).
The Murdoch family owns about 30 percent of News Corp and in addition to Rupert, who is chairman and chief executive, his sons and his wife, Wendy Deng, hold key positions in the group.
News Corp owns some 34 percent of BSkyB. James's older brother Lachlan, seen by many as being groomed eventually to take over from his father, is News Corp's deputy chief operating officer and runs its newspaper businesses.
FIAT
Giovanni Agnelli founded the Fiat car company in Italy in 1899. His grandson, stylish industrialist Gianni, transformed the carmaker Fiat into a global powerhouse but his failing health later mirrored the group's decline into massive losses.
Gianni, who was deeply attached to the Fiat's core car-making arm, died in January 2003, as the Agnelli family -- still in control -- met to discuss the company's worst crisis ever.
Gianni's younger brother Umberto Agnelli, twice sidelined from the top job, became its chairman, and the industrial group has continued its fight back. The firm is recruiting a new candidate to run its core unit, Fiat Auto, and candidates have included former Ford Europe chief Martin Leach.
MOTOROLA
Earlier this month Christpher Galvin said he would retire as chairman and chief executive after 6-1/2 years at the helm of Motorola, a period that spanned the telecom boom of the late 1990s and the bust that left thousands of Motorola workers unemployed and investors pining for better days.
Motorola shares rose after the resignation of Galvin, who had resisted the selling off of businesses which some investors would favour. He had had big shoes to fill at the company.
His father Robert Galvin was instrumental in turning Motorola into one of the world's premier technology companies as the firm expanded into international markets and invented the cell phone under his leadership.
His grandfather Paul founded Motorola's predecessor firm Galvin in 1928 with $565 in cash and $750 in tools and design to make radio equipment. Paul Galvin grew sales to $177.1 million in 22 years, and by the time of his death in 1959, Motorola had established a name for itself in car radios.
FORD
Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company in 1903 in Dearborn, Michigan -- and its current chairman and CEO is his great-grandson, William Clay Ford Jr.
Ford began a manufacturing revolution with its mass production assembly lines in the early 1900s and by 1920 some 60 percent of all vehicles on the road were Ford Model Ts.
Henry never fully ceded control to his son Edsel, who died in 1943 as the company's finances foundered amid wartime production. Only after Edsel's widow threatened to sell her shares and push the family out of control did Henry cede power in 1945 to his 28-year-old grandson, Henry Ford II.
Henry II modernised the company's financial controls and producs, restoring it to second place behind General Motors Corp and taking it public in 1956 with a two-tiered stock system that gave Class B shares to family members, ensuring they retained 40 percent of the voting control.
After hired managers ran the company in the 1980s and much of the 1990s, William Clay Ford Jr took control and sits on the board of directors, along with his father, William Clay Ford, and his cousin, Edsel Ford II.
BANCO SANTANDER:
Ana Patricio Botin, the eldest of Santander Central Hispano Chairman Emilio Botin's five children, is the new head of its retail unit Banesto.
Rich and glamourous, she is set to continue a long dynasty of family bankers well into the 21st century.
Banco Santander Central Hispano was created by the 1999 merger of Banco Santander and Banco Central Hispanoamericano.
The Botin family has been closely identified with the bank for decades. Before his death in 1923, Emilio Botin served as a board member, then for a few years as chairman. The post was held by his son Emilio Botin Sanz de Sautuola from 1950 to 1986, when Emilio Botin Rios (known as Don Emilio) took over.
NORDSTROM
One of America's best-known upscale apparel and shoe retailers, Nordstrom Inc sells clothes, shoes, and accessories through nearly 90 Nordstrom stores and about 50 outlet stores.
In 1901 John Nordstrom, a lumberjack and gold miner, Alaska Gold Rush money to open Wallin & Nordstrom shoe store in Seattle with shoemaker Carl Wallin. Nordstrom retired in 1928 and sold his half of the business to his sons Everett and Elmer. A third Nordstrom son, Lloyd, joined in 1933. The shoe chain thrived and incorporated as Nordstrom's in 1946.
Bruce Nordstrom is chairman of the board. His cousin, John Nordstrom, also sits on the board.
Bruce Nordstrom's sons are Blake Nordstrom, president of the company, and Erik Nordstrom and Peter Nordstrom, both executive vice presidents.
HUTCHISON WHAMPOA LTD
In 1979, Li Ka-shing became the first Chinese to take control of one of Hong Kong's big trading houses, or "hongs", when he bought 22 percent of Hutchison Whampoa , a stake he later expanded.
In the 24 years since, Li has built the company into a global empire spanning property, telecoms, container ports and retailing, regularly earning him the top spot on lists of Asia's richest businessmen.
Li has two sons. One, Victor, keeps a relatively low profile running his father's property development business as deputy chairman of Cheung Kong (Holdings) and is expected one day to run the family business. The other, Richard, gained fame as a young Internet entrepreneur who pulled off Asia's largest-ever corporate takeover in 2000 with the $28 billion buyout of Hong Kong phone company PCCW Ltd , which he still heads.
Sources Reuters/Hoovers