It was a statement made by a private banker to Stefan Wagstyl of the FT is his article “The struggle between success and succession”
“The latest evidence comes in a survey published today by the private banking arm of Barclays which finds that 67 per cent of first-generation creators of family wealth are “highly cautious about relinquishing authority . . . and often maintain a position of authority well into old age.”
They don’t trust their heirs’ commitment to the family business (63 per cent) or their ability to take over the management (57 per cent), says the study, which polled around 400 wealthy people around the world, including nearly 150 in the UK. When it comes to handling the family investments — which perhaps requires fewer special skills than the core business — the level of distrust is only slightly lower, at 53 per cent.
The study echoes others, including a survey last year by Campden Research and the Swiss bank UBS covering family offices, which found that 44 per cent of billionaire and multi-millionaire clans had no succession plan at all.
Admittedly, the rest of us have a similar reluctance to contemplate our own mortality. A survey of 2,000 people in the UK last year by Macmillan Cancer Support, the charity, found that 42 per cent of those aged over 55 had no will”
It doesn’t seem to matter how rich or not so rich you are, the problems are the same. How do you create a successful succession plan? It’s not by simply making a Will as the answer, that’s only part of the issue, it goes much deeper. If the private banker is correct, how do you make a family united with wealth? It boils down to whether you care enough. If you do, you’ll need to allocate time to think deeply about the issues involved. In fact, it is a responsibility of wealth. If you don’t, money has no conscience. It doesn’t care who it belongs to or what you do with it.