Family Wealth--Keeping It in the Family: How Family Members and Their Advisers Preserve Human, Intellectual, and Financial Assets for Generations

Rating:
Summary: Long-term Thinking and How to Get There
Review: "Family Wealth" by James E. Hughes, is a sensitive, detailed blueprint for families who have acquired wealth and want to use it to create a dynastic organization that will preserve their family and its wealth for many generations to come. This book explains in detail the steps necessary for long-term success and guides the reader through the creation of mission statements, plans for family governance, creating a mutually rewarding relationship between trustees and beneficiaries, philanthropy, mentoring, and the establishment of private trust companies. Hughes emphasizes the need for long-term thinking as well as short-term relationship management within the family since decisions made regarding personal and intellectual development will be just as important as financial decisions to the long-term future of the family organization. This book offers an excellent starting point for financial planners as well as estate and trust attorneys who want to address and serve the interests of the wealthy. I recommend it heartily.

Rating:
Summary: A New Paradigm For Wealth Preserving
Review: As a great philosopher once said "I am not ashamed to say that I have learned the good news of the truth and am called to proclaim it to others." The truth is Family Wealth: Keeping It In The Family, is the clear result of the author's extensive discernment and constitutes that rare slice of my profession which rises to the level of a ministry. The beauty of this work lies in the author's ability to state concepts with such simplicity and flow, the reader may be lead to conclude "these insights are so patently obvious I should have discovered them myself." Many of us in the estate planning profession, however, have not previously done so. Having invested 20 years in this profession I can attest that many people with reasonable career abilities can accumulate considerable sums of wealth. Moreover, a reasonably competent estate planning attorney can draft the business and estate planning documents to pass that wealth from one generation to the next. Yet after reading Mr. Hughes' book twice (and garnering increasing insights and applications after each journey) it is manifest that merely fulfilling the professional expectations taught in law school will henceforth be insufficient to deal with the interpersonal dynamics and relationship issues which must be addressed in order to wealth preserve. Moreover, this process must be rekindled and nurtured at each generation level. I now understand that to be a truly excellent estate planner, the issues in this book must be addressed by estate planner and client. Your clients need not have the wealth of a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates to benefit from the wisdom of this book and I hope it will raise the standards for the profession as a whole as it did for me.

Douglas E. Barnes, Trust Officer and member, State Bar of Wisconsin.

Rating:
Summary: A great addition to my bookshelf
Review: I've read a lot of books and recommended them to my friends and family. This one, I bought for my partners and family. As someone who deals daily with great family wealth, it is invaluable to learn from the experiences of others. There is a wealth of ideas in this book, not just for those with great financial assets, but for those families with great human capital. I would recommend it for anyone who deals with family wealth: attorneys, CPA's, trust officers, and members of families who want to preserve their family wealth (financial, human or intellectual capital).

Rating:
Summary: All Encompassing Look at Nurturing a Family for 100+ Years
Review: Most financial planners are very talented at finding ways to avoid, reduce and defer taxes. The better planners can also do a wonderful job of steering your money towards investments that will have appropriate risk-rewards characteristics for your preferences. Beyond that, some kind planners will also help you talk through the problems of your drug addict son and alcoholic daughter. But no one, in my experience, will help you think you how to nurture your family in all of its dimensions.

Family Wealth breaks through those limitations to suggest that those who head a family should be concerned about all aspects of future generations . . . especially their human, intellectual and social developments . . . as well as being sure that the resources will be there to nurture them. Mr. Hughes suggests a time frame of at least 100 years for this perspective. Otherwise, the global fear that the family will arise from one downtrodden existence to fall down into the same existence in only 3 or 4 generations will turn out to be true.

In Family Wealth, Mr. Hughes poses the questions you should be asking about your family and proposes processes to help you turn the answers to those questions into reality.

Beyond that, the book informs those who are donors, trustees, advisors and beneficiaries of financial planning what their roles should be with one another and how those roles can be developed through cooperative effort.

A hundred years is a long time to see how this theory works out, so Mr. Hughes will not live long enough to see if his ideas work over several generations. But he has done his best to draw on well-known examples of families who have prospered for a long time.

I highly recommend this book to those who want to be responsible to their families, advisors to families, those who provide services to family trusts and those who benefit from inherited money and trusts. Your life will be changed very much for the better!






Rating:
Summary: Insightful!
Review: Reading James E. Hughes Jr.'s book is like sitting down in an easy chair with brass rivets gleaming in burgundy leather, in a trusted old family friend's parlor, to obtain a kindly word of advice. You can almost smell the pipe tobacco and taste the brandy as you read. Hughes gently and wisely guides people who want to preserve their family's wealth on how to think beyond the current fiscal year. This book is genuine and straightforward, with insights gained over many years. Hughes covers creating a family mission statement, instituting a family bank or private trust company, mentoring the next generation, family governance, philanthropy and much more. His most important contribution, however, is the perspective he offers on the human side of the equation. Even the richest families are doomed to squander their inheritances, he cautions, unless they recognize the importance of the intellectual and human development of their family members. We highly recommends this book of sage advice to anyone who hopes to keep it all in the family.