Copyright © 2016 by Gregory Curtis. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Names: Curtis, Gregory, 1947- author.
Title: Family capital: working with wealthy families to manage their money across generations / Gregory Curtis.
Description: 1 | Hoboken: Wiley, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015036772 (print) | LCCN 2015045963 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119094135 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119094111 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781119094128 (ePub)
Subjects: LCSH: Finance, Personal. | Wealth – United States. | Investments – United States. | Finance – United States.
Classification: LCC HG179 .C848 2016 (print) | LCC HG179 (ebook) | DDC 332.02400973 – dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015036772
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: gold tree © Marinamik/iStockphoto
I've written two investment books —Creative Capital (iUniverse Press, 2004) and The Stewardship of Wealth (John Wiley & Sons, 2013). When I sat down to think about my third book, I naturally considered how it might be improved over the first two. I paged through both books and tried to think what topics I'd overlooked, where advances in our understanding of the investment process had occurred that needed to be addressed. I reviewed many other investment books.
But then I stepped back and asked myself a different question. Suppose, I thought, wealthy families had asked me what the best way was to learn the business of managing capital. Or suppose colleagues in the wealth advisory world had asked me how they might best improve their skills to stay at the top of their professions. What would I have told them?
In both cases, I would have said something like this: “The best way to learn about managing capital or staying at the top of the wealth management business is to observe thoughtful families and skilled advisors meeting and discussing the challenges presented by managing capital.”
But what does that answer have to do with writing a third investment book? At first, I thought the answer was “nothing whatever.” But one day, as I was flying to New York to meet with a family client, I had an epiphany. Wait, I said to myself! Here you are on your way to a client meeting. You attend at least 40 such meetings every year and you've been doing it for nearly 40 years. That's a whole lot of family meetings.
Over the course of those four decades and more than 1,500 meetings, I've learned a huge amount about what tends to work and what doesn't in the wealth management space. I've learned from my wealth management colleagues – especially my partners at Greycourt & Co., Inc. But I've learned even more from all those clients over all those years.
