The Dilemmas of Family Wealth: Insights on Succession, Cohesion, and Legacy (Bloomberg) [Hardcover]

Judy Martel (Author), James E. Hughes Jr. (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2006 | Series: Bloomberg (Book 23)

Few families are able to pass along their wealth successfully to the next generation. The barriers to keeping money in the family are much more formidable than the barriers to making money in the first place. Why should this be? What pitfalls are most common? How can families and their advisers increase the odds of a successful intergenerational transfer of wealth? How can they preserve the family’s human and intellectual capital?

Judy Martel, CFP®, provides insightful answers to these questions and dozens more in this richly detailed book. The Dilemmas of Family Wealth takes a fresh look at the communications barriers, misunderstandings, and generational conflicts that can pull families apart and scatter their wealth in far less time than it took to build it. Martel identifies the dilemmas that families are likely to face and offers wise counsel for overcoming the challenges they pose. Her book includes advice and perspectives from top experts in the field and frank first-person experiences related by family members with whom they have worked.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“When the mountains of unread books on investing and estate planning are weighed against The Dilemmas of Family Wealth, many will elect to keep this book on the bedside table. Instead of teaching how to calculate P/E ratios or ROI, these twenty-three wise practitioners share their insights in ways that encourage action—not calculations! Wealthy baby boomers, who have been frustrated by so many other how-to books, should rush to purchase this terrific compendium.”
     — Charlotte B. Beyer
         CEO, Institute for Private Investors

“Most families aspire to use wealth purposefully and to raise children as thoughtful stewards of their inheritance. But such aspirations are often thwarted for lack of the kind of sound guidance that Judy Martel offers in The Dilemmas of Family Wealth. The value of this very effective book lies in the stories that illuminate the complexity of wealth—and how to deal with it in the context of the family system. Martel’s book is both specific and provocative. Families would be wise to buy multiple copies and read the book together, chapter by chapter!”
     — Joline Godfrey
         CEO, Independent Means Inc.
         Author, Raising Financially Fit Kids

“Wealthy baby boomers have many individual advisers, but they desperately need some guidance on how to work together as a family to create the best possible future for themselves and their investments. This is a great guide to all facets of the personal side of wealth planning.”
     — Dennis Jaffe
         Professor, Saybrook Graduate School
         Executive Director, Family Enterprise Center
         San Francisco State University

About the Author

Judy Martel, CFP®, is a vice president at Asset Management Advisors (AMA), a leading multifamily office and subsidiary of SunTrust Banks, Inc. Martel has twenty years of experience in journalism and public relations. She was a newspaper journalist for eleven years, and she has written extensively on wealth issues and family dynamics for such publications as Robb Report Worth, Town & Country, and Vive magazine where she writes a regular column. She is a certified financial planner. 

The book’s foreword is by James E. Hughes Jr., author of Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family (Bloomberg Press). His foreword offers the perspective of a respected longtime family counselor and a preeminent expert in the field of family governance and wealth transfer.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 222 pages
• Publisher: Bloomberg Press; 1 edition (February 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576601900
• ISBN-13: 978-1576601907
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,007,550 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Judy Martel is a writer and Certified Financial Planner. She currently writes a blog "Your Wealth" for Bankrate.com, a personal finance website.

She was a vice president at Asset Management Advisors, a multi-family office and affliate of SunTrust Banks, and also spent 12 years as a reporter and editor on the East Coast and in the Midwest.

She has written articles for magazines including "Worth," "Town & Country," "Ladies Home Journal," and "Vive."

She earned a B.A. in journalism from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Read her blog at Bankrate.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Best investment we ever made, November 15, 2010

By 

Leafpeeper (Salem, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Dilemmas of Family Wealth: Insights on Succession, Cohesion, and Legacy (Bloomberg) (Hardcover)

Provided flashes of insight and chrystalized our thinking about inherited wealth. Most profoundly it provided us with the idea that inherited wealth is a way to transmit human, intellectual and financial wealth to the our generation and the next generation. Including ways to prepare the next generation for philanthropy and adopting a work ethic. A MUST read if you want to protect your assests from mindless spending and create joy and cooperation around the inheritance process. A very easy read, I read it cover to cover in two sittings.

3.0 out of 5 stars Probing report on how family firms rise and fall, April 2, 2007

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dilemmas of Family Wealth: Insights on Succession, Cohesion, and Legacy (Bloomberg) (Hardcover)

Before soap operas, people could follow the rise and fall of actual famous families' fortunes. The soaps borrowed heavily from the sagas of wealthy families, stories with the essential elements of any good drama: money, nepotism, jealousy, decadence and conflict. Family businesses are the world's most popular form of corporate ownership, yet few family businesses make it past the second generation. Judy Martel offers case histories and aptly describes the problems associated with family fortunes, but tends to fall short of fully explaining solutions. She repeats some remedies often, such as forming a "family council." And, some remedies seem slight, such as ways to resolve differences over sharing a summer house. We appreciate Martel's emphasis on family values, while wishing this book's solutions were all as solid as the fascinating problems it describes.