Is There Such a Thing as a Standard Plan for High Net Worth Families?

Covie is a Partner and the Chief Wealth Advisory Officer at Ballentine Partners where she is responsible for the development and management of the firm’s family education, family governance, and philanthropic offerings. Covie also leads several of the firm’s large family client engagements and specialises in helping her clients manage the impact of their wealth and ensure that their wealth management strategy reflects their families’ values and goals.

Covie is the author of a two-book series based on interviews that highlight success stories of family wealth: the first, Raised Healthy, Wealthy & Wise (2014), focuses on raising children to be grounded and successful adults amid wealth, and the second, Aged Healthy, Wealthy & Wise (2017), focuses on designing a vibrant and purposeful later life and legacy.

Episode Timeline

• [1:52] How Covie got into family wealth advisory
• [6:12] Ideal clients and what clients are seeking when they come to Ballentine Partners
• [9:00] Looking at the bigger picture when looking at client’s needs and investments
• [13:20] Increased percentage of uptake in trust built client relationships
• [16:18] Patterns when creating investment and wealth management plans
• [19:58] The primary sources of initial wealth for first generation families that Covie sees
• [20:58] Why more money can actually make parenting harder
• [25:34] Next generation success being driven by successes in life and self-motivation
• [27:38] Finding the balance to give children fulfilling lives of meaning
• [33:33] Focusing on the communication of values when discussing shared assets
• [38:12] Inheritor’s guilt for advantages they received and how to counteract that
• [41:55] Covie’s advice to a driven entrepreneur who inspired to be the founding generation
• [45:10] The four success factors Covie believes all successful next generation members share
• [47:50] The role Covie plays in helping families in philanthropic legacy and impact projects
• [55:12] Covie’s belief in wishing for our children to have the confidence to handle the struggles of life

Standout Quotes

• "You do need to have a pretty good degree of self-awareness and being able to look in the mirror as a parent to understand how you might need to evaluate and potentially change your own behavior relative to a child, in order to allow that child to become independent and financially self-sufficient." – Covie Edwards-Pitt [15:12]
• "If you have very little money, it's very challenging. Then as you get more money it gets easier, and as you get more money it becomes harder again. I definitely see that to be the case. I think the reason is, having money, having an abundance of resources essentially, more than you would need, has a way of complicating every single parenting interaction with your child in a way that, to no fault of the parents, might essentially deprive the child of a lesson that they would have learned by default if their family have had less” – Covie Edwards-Pitt [21:31]
• "Content, productive, driven by their inner sense of motivation, grounded, satisfied, passionate in their career choice. That sort of list of characteristics was evident to me because I recognize it all the time in the next gens." – Covie Edwards-Pitt [26:19]
• "Fulfilling lives have as part of them, struggle. Something that the person can think back on as something they have overcome in their life that gives them a sense of pride." – Covie Edwards-Pitt [28:45]
• "Communication is key. Communicating the values and the framework that are driving parent's decisions in a clear, transparent way is very important. I coach my clients to try to think about, what are the types of things we'd like to support? What are the types of things that we would like to help children with, when they reach those milestones in their lives? – Covie Edwards-Pitt [34:39]
• "The most important advice I would give is to say... that your child, when they look in the mirror as an adult... When they ask themselves do I have this job or do I have this responsibility or title because of my name or because of my effort? They can answer, my effort." – Covie Edwards-Pitt [42:09]

Key Takeaways

• Think of a client relationship and services provided as a much larger conversation about the client and what they hope to achieve as a whole
• The ways to recognize patterns when creating investment and wealth management plans for ultra high net worth families
• Ways in which parents with substantial means can still raise well-rounded children
• How success in the next generation can be different as it is more about the inner sense of motivation and satisfaction
• Why it’s important to allow children to struggle to attain a fulfilling and contented life
• The communication involved when managing shared family assets
• Inheritors will often find a true sense of purpose when they develop their own sense of contribution and passion in life
• Having family constitutions and clear frameworks for inheritor’s to truly feel they deserve their position
• Covie’s four success factors she has found all successful next generation members share

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Special Guest: Coventry (Covie) Edwards-Pitt.

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Links:

• Wealth Management | Ballentine Partners — Ballentine Partners is a client-centric investment and wealth management firm dedicated to integrity and independence.
• Book: Raised Healthy, Wealthy & Wise: Lessons from successful and grounded inheritors on how they got that way — At a certain level of wealth, money makes parenting harder, not easier. Raised Healthy, Wealthy & Wise breaks new ground in the field of raising children amid wealth by hearing the success stories: real-life children raised with wealth now grown into happy, healthy, and productive adults.
• Book: Aged Healthy, Wealthy & Wise: Lessons from vibrant and inspiring elders on how they designed their later lives — There is much about aging that we can't control. But there is much more that we can. Nationally recognized wealth advisor Coventry Edwards-Pitt applies the success-story format of her highly acclaimed first book, "Raised Healthy, Wealthy & Wise" (2014), to one of today's most pressing issues: how to age well--given our increased longevity--and ensure that our later years have a positive rather than negative impact on our families.