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

by James E. Hughes Jr.

Book Overview

The landmark book that changed the way exceptional familiesthink about their heritage, their wealth, and their legacy tofuture generations--now revised and expanded.

Every family, looking at the next generation, hopes to conferadvantages that are more than just material and financial--toinculcate character and leadership, to inspire creativity andenterprise, to help all family members find and follow theirindividual callings,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157660151X
• ISBN13: 9781576601518
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Bloomberg Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.7" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Really expanded my horizons

Studying this book and sharing copies of it with some of my cousins really opened my eyes to the potential in my extended family. We don't have substantial financial wealth, though there are a few deep pockets. We have several people in my generation who have achieved outstanding success in life, including one who's a major general in the Army and another who is a star on Broadway. More than that, we have six generations of people who are used to knowing each other and working together because of a piece of recreation property that my great-grandfather bought 100 years ago. That property has kept us together for 100 years but it won't be enough for another 100 years. This book got me thinking about what we can do for the next 100 years, and I see lots of opportunity to develop the "human capital" in this family and to back those things with financial strength. Most of all, this book stimulated my thinking "outside the box" and provided the springboard for family discussions that will let my siblings and cousins and I create something with the potential to keep making this family stronger for another half-dozen generations. For that, I think buying this book was probably the very best family investment I could make.

Long-term Thinking and How to Get There

"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.

All Encompassing Look at Nurturing a Family for 100+ Years

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!

A great addition to my bookshelf

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).

A New Paradigm For Wealth Preserving

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.