Battling Belks: maul in the family.

• Position: Belks feud over control of family business - Tar Heel Tattler

Almost every family business has a dissident stockholder like Bill Belk, but not every family has a $2 billion empire to fight over.

Because of the not-so-kissin' cousin and his supporters, the war over control of the Belk department-store group, now into its fourth decade, shows no more signs of healing than the strife in Somalia.

Brothers John, 73, and Tom, 68, remain in charge of the 14-state department-store chain, as they've mostly been since their father, William Henry Belk, died in 1952 at age 89. Tom's sons, Tim, McKay and John, are poised to take charge. Bill Belk, 44, is the son of Irwin Belk, John and Tom's brother. Bill runs a 15-store group in North Carolina and South Carolina.

But that's not enough to satisfy this Belk, who characterizes John and Tom as mean-spirited schemers who treat outside stockholders like dirt. In contrast to the company's extremely private nature -- it doesn't disclose basics like annual sales or number of stores -- Bill Belk describes intimate family scraps that mirror soap-opera battles. A buddy of Bill...