Raise your hand if your family has ever had a cousins group that was somehow engaged in investing together. Keep your hand up if after a year or two, or even three, those Next Gens were no longer interested in their group. My hand is up. Is yours? Now, raise your hand if you decided to find a way to...

It used to be very difficult for beneficiary’s to change the terms of previously-established trusts, and if they were able to make the changes at all, it could be quite costly. But through a process known as “trust decanting,” trustees can “pour” the assets from an older, less-desirable trust into a...

Families with significant wealth often tell us they wish to deploy a portion of their resources to make some kind of positive impact—broadly defined as doing good for people and the planet. We know that for many clients, the pursuit of impact is fundamental to their efforts to define their family or...

There seems to be at least one new concept that lingers in the memory and creates a buzz among the attendees at each FOX event. At this year’s FOX Wealth Advisor Forum, it was the observation by Glen W. Johnson, Managing Director of Mirador Family Wealth Advisors, on the significant impact that incr...

When I attended a recent FOX Executive Council meeting, one common theme I kept hearing from members was how difficult it is, in this or any business environment, to keep the right talent on staff and not face flight risks. The most obvious answer is “cash compensation,” but sadly there’s not an inf...

One of the hardest things for any family to accomplish, but especially a family of wealth, is to engage multiple generations in a meaningful way. I’m convinced that one of the best ways to do that is through shared philanthropy.In the summer of 1999 my cousins and I ranged in age from 12-27. At 19 y...

A client of mine once characterized Wealth Integration as a “fiscal physical.”Initially, I wasn’t all that flattered by the comparison. However, the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that this unfortunate-but-fair description accurately recognizes that, like a medical physical, a f...

For many family offices—especially the smaller ones—the thought of spending tens of thousands of dollars on one key element of cybersecurity, penetration testing, is a daunting prospect.Though certainly helpful, penetration testing is often overkill for many offices. A better approach may be to star...

Here are some numbers to grab your attention and ponder: The U.S. dollar has rallied almost 25% percent in the past nine months and 35% over the past four years. In light of these substantial and notable gains by the bullish greenback, it’s hard not to ask: What is propelling the dollar’s surge? Wha...