Wealth Management

Voted #6 on Top 100 Family Business influencer on Wealth, Legacy, Finance and Investments: Jacoline Loewen My Amazon Authors' page Twitter:@ jacolineloewen Linkedin: Jacoline Loewen Profile
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts

August 17, 2020

The Hazards of Wealth

 If you are an entrepreneur and are smart about your wealth, you will be interested in Jacoline Loewen and her interviews in “Becoming Seriously Wealthy.” Jacoline shares conversations with entrepreneurs and stories of their financial journeys.  In this excerpt from her book, Jacoline explores the hazards of wealth.

Jacoline Loewen is a leader in the high performance wealth management arena. She has invested over 25+ years in entrepreneurship, finance and wealth management, having written several best seller books, including Money Magnet, (John Wiley) publisher).

Two weeks ago, I enjoyed a lunch with a former client at his private residence, looking across his sprawling lawn to the horse paddocks and fields. When I worked for a family office, I convinced this entrepreneur to partner with private equity. After six years, and much hard work, he succeeded in that entrepreneur dream where he sold his business and became wealthy beyond his financial goal set ten years back. 

I was curious how the sudden wealth had impacted his life and asked, “Now that you are a few years along from your sale, what is your big insight? We all think sudden wealth is wonderful but what are the risks? Do you think there are hazards to wealth?”

He laughed, “It's similar to winning the lottery.  It is wonderful and it is a shock to your life, your family, your friends and peer group. The question no one is going to ask you is ‘How are you going to replace this self esteem?’ You've been up Everest and back. Now what are you going to do for thrills and fun?”



My friend then commented, “Do you notice how many entrepreneurs buy an airplane? They have all this hunger for life, for adventure, and now that they have the money, buying a plane and learning to fly seems like a very good idea.”

The CAA reports that the most dangerous pilots statistically likely to have accidents or catastrophic incidents are those pilots with one hundred hours of experience, but less than five hundred. Jack McLeod, Skye Finance, who sold aircraft to entrepreneurs says, “Generally, this group gets bored with pre-flight checks and take short cuts to ‘show off’ to friends and family, feel nothing about flying inclement weather and are not too familiar with flying on instruments alone. Experience and hours are all important.”

My entrepreneur friend had been part of the Strategic Coach program run by Dan Sullivan which uses the Kolbe personality and skill assessment tool.  Apparently, the Kolbe test shows that it is common for entrepreneurs to be quick to start, but to not carry through with attention to rigorous and systematic detail.  He said, “Entrepreneurs learn how to fly initially, but soon skip through the tedious fifty-point check lists prior to flying and overlook the weather conditions. How many tragic tales do you know of entrepreneurs crashing their planes with loved ones on board? Remember the young Kennedy who crashed his plane at night, with his wife onboard?”

Thankfully, most entrepreneurs have been shown to be astute enough to recognize flying is not their skill set and to hire an experienced pilot. The entrepreneurs recognize that while they were talented at their skill set, flying and getting licensed takes time and attention they do not really want to dedicate.

Flying yourself, rather than hiring a pilot, is a terrible way to risk your future. It's misguided, risky and unfortunately, a common first foray into travel by former business owners.

The reality is risks, such as flying planes in poor weather, Black Swan events, pandemics and disasters are all out there. In the finance world, this risk is called beta . A beta of 1.00 is at the market level. If it's 1.5, it's approximately 50% more risky than the market. If it's 0.30 then it's 70% less risk.

When you run with entrepreneurs, risk is rarely mentioned. It's about returns. Winner takes all. Beta does not factor.

As you decide how to look after your wealth, you may want to be the person making all the calls. I have watched many entrepreneurs over the years. Don't fool yourself into believing you can call the risks. I would advice an entrepreneur with new wealth to ask if you want to spend your time checking on your money? Will your family be at risk if you are doing the decision making? What is the worst case scenario for your wealth? Above all, can you do a better job than the professionals with all of their time dedicated to understanding how to grow and keep wealth? Do you have their technology, their experience , their global view of the world, their ability to overcome country bias and the knowledge of beta which is harvested from overseeing your peers’ wealth?

Very much like the skills of the pilot , the skills of managing wealth are increasingly complex. Ensure you have the experts and, the world's best at wealth management .

 

Interested in risk-testing your portfolio? Please email me at jacoline.loewen@ubs.com

If you would like to read more of the series Becoming Seriously Wealthy, please email me at jacoline.loewen@ubs.com  

Twitter: @jacolineloewen

Praise for Money Magnet, J.B. Loewen

"Every ambitious private business owner should understand the role of investors and how to attract them. Money Magnet is an indispensible guide to the process."
Austen Beutel, Chairman and CEO, Oakwest Corporation Ltd.

October 22, 2017

The whole fintech discussion has changed

Jacoline Loewen
It was terrific to hear our COO, Axel Lehmann, chat about Fintech and banking during his visit to Toronto for SIBOS. Here is a great interview with Business Insider which covers a few of the topics Axel covered with us this week.

Business Insider chatted with Axel Lehmann, chief operating officer of Swiss bank UBS, to ask how the organisation is coming to terms with fast-changing world of fintech.
Ben Moshinsky: Where are the main threats and opportunities to UBS from the fintech boom?
Axel Lehmann: True change is really coming from outside the industry. That is the key challenge we face as of today. The whole fintech discussion has changed, we have moved on from discussing whether a revolution is taking place, and how the banks will become redundant, to a place where most banks are looking at collaborative efforts with other firms. This is why most of what we do in terms of technological development we do in partnership with fintech companies.
I don’t want to get blindsided. It’s less the technology, as such, providing a transformative element in the banking industry. It’s really alternative business models that have the potential to shake up everything and eat into our cake.
It is also full of opportunities. We, the banks, are operating from a position of strength from a customer perspective especially in terms of the amount of customer interaction, the know-how we can provide, and the services we can offer. You can’t create any of this overnight.
And secondly, we have a legacy infrastructure which can be regarded as a liability, but it’s also an asset. When the Trump election got through, for example, volatility was high. We have an infrastructure that can scale up in line with volatility, and that’s something you need to have.
So, in this regard, I’m personally optimistic. It’s easier, when you look to consumer industries, for example, Uber or WhatsApp, to disrupt a lightly regulated sector. But when you look at where we as banks are, you get into the highly regulated space immediately, when you talk about balance sheet and liquidity, and this makes this industry less easy to disrupt.
But no doubt, we still do have to be mindful that we’re not losing out on some of that less regulated space, particularly at the point of customer interaction.
BM: What's the most exciting technology on your radar?
AL: I truly believe that whole question of robotics and artificial intelligence over a time horizon of four to eight years will fundamentally change the banking business. As banks, we understand that our business is all about data. These technologies have the potential to really fundamentally change the way we operate in terms of getting smarter with the customer, understanding what kind of products we should offer and so on. That is definitely exciting.

April 30, 2016

35 ReasonsToronto Tech is Booming

 Invitation to UBS Bank (Canada), Wealth Management, Technology Invitation



















WHY 35 REASONS?
In a stunning year for Canadians in the technology industry, 2015 brought many success stories.  
We thought we would add more spark to the tech industry this year by bringing together a room of 35 like-minded tech entrepreneurs and investors as guests of UBS Bank (Canada)
Sure enough, the energy flowed.
OUR PARTNERS: 
We were delighted to partner on the Technology Networking Evening withPwC Technology and The Entrepreneurship Society, as well as Blake, Cassels and Graydon.
OUR GUEST SPEAKER:
A special thank you to Randall Howard, Verdexus portfolio investments, who stepped in as guest speaker when Drew Green, Indochino, was unable to attend. Randall  is a senior serial technology executive committed to building the leading technology firms in Canada. Randall shared several critical take-way point for the evening:
  1. Focus: When Randall and the founding group of his succesful tech buddies donated a large sum of cash to get Communitech off the ground, they did not have any idea how big it would get. Randall said, "It took a group of committed individuals to make the technology industry thrive in Canada." 
  2. Important Partners on the Journey: By coincidence, in the room was the investment banker who figured out a new financial structure to raise the capital for Randall's first tech company. The banker was a Waterloo engineering graduate too. There were many Waterloo graduates in the room. They certainly have figured out the secret sauce for producing winners. Randall emphasized how the profesionalism of the banker made the big difference in his career.
  3. Giving back: Having reached the heights of success in his business life, Randall is now focussed on giving. He has won Angel Investor of the Year which really underlines how seriousy he takes helping the emerging Canadian entrepreneurs. Randall is particularly interested in social impact investing and along with his corporate and university board responsiblities, he sits on boards of arts and drama groups too. 
The Fourth Revolution: The theme of the evening was the next stage of techology. Julien Favre, UBS, shared with our guests the white paper on the theme of this year's World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on January 20-23. The white paper is entitled Extreme automation and connectivityThe global, regional, and investment implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It outlines:
  • A brief history of the four industrial revolutions that have taken place since the late 18th century.
  • It also explores the potential economic and investment consequences and likely regional winners and losers.
  • If you also want to read the white paper - You can read the UBS White Paper HERE...
A special thank you to Sean StanleighJulien FavrePhaby UtomoMatthias Kluser, Stephanie Baldouf, Quinn Lawson, Bill HennessyTed Graham, Burzin Contractor and Andre Perey.