“Some of our clients have inherited wealth, others created it. What they all have in common is the need for real insights into different aspects of private wealth ownership, from first principles upward.
Many also recognise that it is important to go beyond the obvious issues of understanding markets or assessing the balance between risk and reward.
WealthWise™ have devised courses that include sessions on how to maximise the usefulness of professionals, cutting through the jargon – and opportunities for delegates to explore their personal lifestyle objectives in one-to-one counselling with our course tutors. We tackle such issues as how to evaluate advisors and build effective relationships with them.
Philanthropy
Another interesting observation is that as wealth owners become older, they progressively divert more and more money into charities, foundations and philanthropic projects – and less and less to the next generation.
Typically, the focus begins with the basics of funding children’s education, medical and housing needs and starting businesses. But beyond that, the donors of wealth want their children to serve real apprenticeships and to develop genuine life skills, without becoming de-motivated from having no necessity to achieve anything.
It therefore becomes important to assist each successive generation to understand the merits and uses of philanthropy in a family wealth context, and how it can bring the whole family together through a shared, worthwhile cause.
Even the youngest can benefit: for clients with a private family foundation, a valuable technique is to create a junior board. This deft touch enables the children to increase their participation and understanding of wealth’s responsibilities – and so value them more.
I believe WealthWise™ is an essential step towards becoming comfortable with wealth ownership. Our purpose is to ensure that the wealth belongs to the individual rather than he or she belonging to it.”
Key Wealth Care is the Jersey-based wealth management group specialising in private client and family office services.
For information
brian.clarke AT key-trust.com
www.key-trust.com
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
“WealthWise”:Courses helping the rich become wise about wealth
Monday, 6 October 2008
Brian Clarke, Director of Key Trust Company offers some views on investment for family offices and families in business
Brian Clarke, Director of Key Trust Company and recent winner of the STEP independent trust company of the year, gives Citywealth his views during the current difficult times.
The events which lead to one outcome on Monday can lead to a different outcome on Tuesday. There is now simply too much information for any one individual or a computer to fully comprehend. There are just too many moving parts and our minds are trained to select only the information we need and to filter the rest.
Applying this concept to the market suggests that each investment manager or trader will tend to focus on what they personally consider important and ignore the rest. Two old (but none the worse for that) investment philosophies are: The random walk theory, which says that everything that can be known is already factored into the price, therefore the move in tomorrow’s price will be random.
The other theory is that while it pays to follow a trend, when following the herd, accept that you are walking in the droppings.
Because decision makers work with fundamentals, technical signals, and numerous financial variables to meet the supply and demand requirements of their firm, they have to select those elements that are relevant to them. They focus on those elements that are specific to their decision-making, filtering out other variables as either being too small or too fleeting. Result: they do not work with the real market but with a mental model of the market.
In a year when the filtered-out issues suddenly become dominant, this can have a disastrous effect on investment policy. Banks, commodities, oil all have significant valuation changes beyond any average trend line.
At our annual meetings with family clients, we are always talking about the entire global spread of investments and how important it is to ensure a balance.
The elements we strive to include are real estate, art collectables that can be enjoyed, land, cash, equities and holdings for long term income. As an independent company, we are perfectly placed to introduce the best managers for each asset sector.
In these volatile times, I believe, having a secure, broad and inclusive spread of assets gives a good foundation for stress-free living.
www.key-trust.com
