Archive Results for Opinion of the Week

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• August 24, 2010 - Full Marks For STEP In Warning Over Exchange Of Data Risks - Tom Burroughes , .
  

  Nowadays, the privacy of clients of banks is treated not so much with respect by policymakers as hostility, judging by the pressures on offshore centres and the purchase of stolen bank data by certain governments, such as that of Germany. Fears about privacy are not just special pleading - they are based on genuine concerns. The privacy issue has also been thrown into relief by a sharply-worded recent report from the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, warning that there have been so many recently signed Tax Informatio.

• August 17, 2010 - Six Biggest Myths About Gold - Nick Barisheff, Bullion Management Group.
  

  Of the seven asset classes  – cash, stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, precious metals and collectables – none are subject to such widespread negative bias and misconceptions as precious metals, particularly gold.   Myth One: Gold Is A Bad Investment Everyone seems to have a story about how someone they know bought gold at $850 per ounce in 1980 and had to wait 28 years to break even. If inflation is taken into account, the gold price would need to reach $2,200 for that to occur.

• July 23, 2010 - Be Ready For Change: Dodd-Frank And The Family Office - Dirk Jungé, Pitcairn.
  

  For wealthy families, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act could be a game changer similar to the impact the Sarbanes-Oxley Act had on the business community in the aftermath of Enron and WorldCom affairs. The new legislation and regulations will require families to expand their planning efforts, both for their businesses and family offices. The big question it now raises for families is how to structure their investment activities going forward.

• July 21, 2010 - Evaluating Client Suitability - How To Ensure Industry Best Practice - Brent Randall , Third Financial .
  

  Increased regulation is changing the way wealth investment managers determine their clients’ needs. This means that they need to not only advise the client on what investment strategy to take, but also ensure that it can actually be delivered in a compliant way. Here, Brent Randall, product director at Third Financial, discusses the need for client suitability and the steps that need to be taken to ensure industry best practice.

• June 28, 2010 - Philanthropy: The Spend Down Option - Meg Lassar, Strategic Philanthropy, Ltd..
  

  One of the key findings from a 2009 Aspen Institute study on foundation spend down, Is Time of the Essence: Being Strategic in Spending Down – Or Choosing Perpetuity in Endowments, is that trustees often make the decision to limit foundation lifespan in order to “attack today’s problems with today’s money”. Increasingly, the issue of limited-life foundations is generating much thoughtful discussion among foundation trustees and their advisors. The idea is not a new one.

• June 3, 2010 - Going Independent: Why More Advisors Will Go Out On Their Own - Jeff Spears, Sanctuary Weath Services.
  

  Is an exodus of the best wealth advisors about to begin at wirehouses and private banks? For different reasons, “yes” is the likely answer for both types of investment professionals.   We have been building to this tipping point for some time.  Advisor pay is under pressure, mergers and cost-cutting are upending the stability of many institutions, and independent advisors are getting significant traction in the marketplace, particularly among high net worth clients.

• May 21, 2010 - Single Family Offices Can Be Cost Effective - Charles Lowenhaupt, Lowenhaupt Global Advisors.
  

  Are single-family offices too expensive, impractical and obsolete for the family with $100 million to $500 million dollars?  The answer is no, if the family approaches wealth management more strategically and methodically than it may have in the past. If single family offices are struggling, we need to consider what they are struggling to do. In fact, the challenges they are facing are straightforward.

• April 20, 2010 - The Goldman Sachs Affair - What It May Mean For Wealth Managers - Tom Burroughes , .
  

  Just when we thought the worst of scandals from this financial turmoil had passed, here comes Goldman Sachs’ alleged outrage of dishonestly playing both sides of a market on products it was selling.   The fine details of the scandal need not detain us here, which given the complexity of the details, is just as well. What interests this publication, however, is whether, and how, the affair will affect wealth managers and their clients.

• April 12, 2010 - Wealth Management Discovers Integrated Marketing - Marla Bace, Brinton Eaton.
  

  As high net worth investors begin to recoup some of the losses suffered in late 2008 and early 2009, trust in the financial services industry is starting to recover. Yet there’s no denying that the market declines, combined with high-profile scandals such as the Madoff and Stanford debacles, has left the wealth management industry with some of the worst image problems in our history. What have we learned? Throughout all the turmoil, firms that fared the best were those that stuck to tried and true investment principles, while at the same time making a concerted effort to provide education and transparency to clients.

• March 23, 2010 - How A US Law Is Hitting Expats - Tom Burroughes , .
  

  Those ladies and gentlemen down in Washington DC have been busy churning out a raft of new legislation. And while a lot of mainstream media attention has understandably focused on the recent healthcare reform, a freshly minted economic and tax package has serious implications for expat US citizens. The HIRE Act, or Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, was covered by almost all media outlets that I could track as a job creation measure, involving the granting of a sort of tax holiday for firms taking on the unemployed.




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