Resource Search

While each stage of life presents its own opportunities and challenges, the similarities in the paths individuals need to follow to meet their health and wealth goals are unmistakable. By adopting a holistic approach that includes prevention, proactive planning and professional advice, individuals will be on their way to ensuring a healthy and rewarding financial future.

The current financial crisis has caused many individuals to re-evaluate the role that money plays in their lives and has given families the perfect incentive to have realistic conversations about money. Noting that family advisors and mental health professionals long have advocated "financial parenting," this paper offers guidance for raising financially responsible children.

From planning an agenda and obtaining family buy-in to selecting the right venue and leading an event, this short article is replete with practical ideas for organizing family meetings and making them both fun and productive for participants.

Independence, freedom, the ability to choose their own destiny and focus on giving back to their community are the things that motivate extremely affluent women. The ability to pursue work they are passionate about, develop their personal strengths and be of service to those less fortunate make today's wealthiest women happy and fulfilled.

This paper defines a relatively new measure of active management; discusses how it might be used alone and in combination with tracking error to better characterize and compare active managers; discusses how it might help to identify managers most likely to outperform their benchmarks; and promotes further discussion and research of active share as another measure of manager analytics.

Long-term care insurance, a meaningful solution to the long-term care risk exposure facing the ultra-wealthy, also can be a flexible and economical employee benefit, particularly in light of its statutory classification and tax treatment.

While it is always a good practice to be prepared for possible future transitions, the current economic climate makes succession planning imperative. A well designed succession plan will help protect client relationships, ensure business continuity, promote economies of scale and provide procedures for dealing with the eventual retirement of advisory firm founders.

The client/manager relationship can develop into a very personalized helping process. However, few managers are adept at directing their clients to use other, more appropriate resources or know how to divert or avoid personal topics with clients. The result is ineffective help for clients and personal and financial cost to families and family offices.

Active managers and alternative investment strategies offer the opportunity to add value over passive investments and can offer capital protection. However, as recent cases of financial wrongdoing have shown, it is critically important for investors to adhere to best practices in evaluating a manager's claims and demanding both transparency and an alignment of interests.

While it is critical to reward good performance by general partners, risks and returns should be equitably shared. Non-marketable alternative asset investors should hold frank discussions with general partners about fee arrangements, fund sizes and other activities that may dilute a proper alignment of incentives.