Two demographic trends to keep markets rising

Next week, I am running a breakfast session with our economics strategist and the topic is "Is it Getting Late?"

Jacoline Loewen

This long run is worrying many investors. As we all know, change is constant so what could keep the markets trending upwards?

Here are two demographic developments that I believe are likely to move the markets for decades:

1. Canada’s echo boom

As the ratio of a country’s middle-aged (35- to 49-year-olds) to young (20 to 34) rises, so do stocks, says Brookfield research.
Why? As people age, they start to save more for retirement, which is good for the markets. The Canadian and U.S. M/Y ratio surged in the ’80s, sank in the 2000s, but is expected to turn around next year, thanks to the aging of the millennials.

2. China’s baby boom

Beijing is easing its one-child policy, starting off by allowing parents who are only children themselves to have a second child.
“Think about what that means for demand for infant formula, food, education, and housing,” says David Winters, manager of the Wintergreen Fund.

What do you think? Continue the conversation on Twitter: jacolineloewen

The Wealthy Open Up About Managing Family Expectations

In Wealth Management, I have observed that families with $20M and over are wanting more than portfolio management. They are also wanting guidance in helping the family manage their fortune but alos their family cohesion. That has to come as the result of candid conversations that are, quite frankly, easier to avoid.


Jacoline Loewen

Those unspoken conversations do come back to haunt many and are really are better to have with a skilled facilitator aware of the many roadblocks and bear traps along the way. The following is an example of what can be achieved by tackling the task of the money conversations with family. Read full article here.

In one case, she helped a family patriarch who wanted to open up, by bringing the whole family together for a series of family communications workshops. “This was a dad, he wanted his children to know everything,” she says, but the family members weren’t on the same page. The business founder, his wife, their five kids, and his ex-wife, all came together. Two of the three kids work for the family business. The ex gets alimony funded from the business. Some of them talked “business”--while others felt like they were in the dark. “They were at odds; everybody was trying to find their place,” says Schnaubelt.

First, they identified communications styles and learned how to talk so the others would hear them. Those in the family manufacturing business practiced giving the other family members permission to talk, and the others practiced not letting themselves be pushed over. One outcome: they decided to set up a donor-advised fund at Fidelity Charitable, from which they could make large charitable donations in the family’s name, while each family member could suggest smaller grants from subaccounts. In another workshop, families sort through “Picture Your Legacy” cards to select values and aspirations, and then design a family crest. “It’s a great exercise to bring families together and talk about what’s important,” Markwalter says. Taking a page out of his firm’s playbook, he and his wife Juanita, gathered their five sons—two at home and the others scattered across the country—to give it a try. “I thought they’d think it was corny,” Markwalter says. “What I found was that they were incredibly opinionated in a good way.”

The Markwalters made up a family motto: “Faith, Family, Friends.” and added an actionable tagline: “Do the right thing.” They talked about ambition, and finding work that’s engaging—a work ethic they traced back to ancestors who worked as stone cutters on the Cologne cathedral (hence the stone cutter symbol on the crest). The biggest epiphany, Markwalter found, that he shares with other families hesitant about engaging in these kinds of talks, is that “every single family member has something to offer.”

Fintechs at the Future of Finance finals in New York

Jacoline Loewen with the team

IT was a warm week to be in New York with the team to pick the finallist for the Future of Finance Challenge. It has been a journey for all the Canadian companies so it was exciting to finally get to New York and meet the mentors and other finalists.

This is my big AHA: The UBS mentors learnt as much from their interaction with the Fintechs as the entrpreneurs learnt from their time speaking with the UBS experts.

What a great experience to go on the heroic journey with the Canadian fintech finalists, starting in Toronto and then travelling to the UBS HQ in the USA.
There were 11 finalists and 5 were Canadian which was amazing.

Rise of the Millenials - Jacoline Loewen, Speaker at Queens Business Entrepreneurs Association

Jacoline Loewen

Billionaires motivated not only by wealth creation

Working at UBS which provides private wealth management to high net worth people and then also the ultra high net worth, I get asked a great deal about the wealthy. Are they nice? Are they mean? Do they have good family relationships? How do they treat their spouse? How do they spend their money? Did they inherit their money? How did they make it?

Jacoline Loewen at The Business Transitions Forum

When I read this article on the wealthy from John Mathews, head of UBS private wealth, it covered many of the insights that are well worth noting. I thought I would share an excerpt of it.

"Whenever we meet our clients we are struck by how normal they are. Yes they are usually intensely focused, bright and passionate, particularly when it comes to their business. But they are also often quiet, thoughtful and preoccupied as much by the responsibilities of great wealth as by its benefits."

"That sense of the 'burden of wealth' is having some interesting effects. The new generation of billionaires in particular is motivated not only by wealth creation but a broader sense of purpose. This means even more commitment to improving living standards, job creation, and providing broader access to cultural capital. As governments around the world cut back on spending, there is a growing feeling that the private sector must play a bigger role. "

  Below is a brief list of the different activities and you can read the full report here.

1. Arts and culture

Billionaires are creating alternative legacies through their cultural pursuits. Private museums are growing in number and public museums are receiving more funding, increasing the accessibility of art to the public. Maja Oeri, a Swiss pharmaceuticals heiress, illustrated the trend when she donated a large proportion of the funds for the 2016 extension of the Kunstmuseum Basel, the city's municipal art collection. Similar initiatives have proven to be equally successful: US museums like the MoMA in New York and SFMOMA thrive on support from billionaires.

2. Sports

The ultrawealthy are also helping sports clubs to become more sustainable, helping them to deliver associated benefits to the communities of which they are a part. For example, Jack Ma's Alibaba has invested in Evergrande Taobao FC, recruiting international players and coaches, building one of the world's biggest football schools, dominating the league and becoming the first Chinese winners of the Asian Champions League in 2013.

3. Philanthropy

Networks and communities are playing an increasingly important part in enabling this sort of purpose-driven activity. A prominent example is The Giving Pledge. At the end of May 2017, 160 signatories, including some of the world's wealthiest individuals and families, had committed more than half their wealth to philanthropy.

4. Impact investing

Impact investing is also growing fast. The Rise Fund, for example, aims to balance competitive financial returns with positive societal outcomes. Its Founders Board includes billionaire entrepreneurs, rock stars, royalty.

5. Family

Looking ahead, the global impact of billionaire wealth is set to grow even further, with an estimated USD2.4 trillion of billionaire wealth expected to be transferred in the next two decades.