Longevity & Aging

No doubt about it: at some point we’re neither semi-retired, findependent or fully retired. We’re out there in a retirement community or retirement home, and maybe for a few years near the end of this incarnation, some time to reflect on it all in a nursing home. Our Longevity & Aging category features our own unique blog posts, as well as blog feeds from Mark Venning’s ChangeRangers.com and other experts.

Business owners need to step up Wealth transfer plans for next generation

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | May 16, 2017

Here’s my latest High Net Worth blog for the Financial Post, titled Only 40% of new business owners have transition in place, says new report.

The latest in a series of global surveys by RBC Wealth Management and Scorpio Partnership finds that while more than a third of business owners in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have a full formal plan in place to pass their wealth on to their heirs, one in five have not even started to plan.

RBC surveyed 384 high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the three countries, with average investible wealth of US$6.4 million. While 51% of business owners have a will in place, a startling 22% have not yet started any sort of wealth transfer preparations; which means “the majority of business owners are relatively unprepared to pass on their financial legacy,” the report says.

One of the experts I consulted was business transition and valuation expert Ian R. Campbell, who recently wrote a Hub blog about Donald Trump’s business transition plans for his high-profile family members. It was also the basis for an earlier Financial Post column by me headlined Donald Trump is upping the ante in the Wealth Transfer game.

The pitfalls of naming your children co-executors

Posted By Marie Engen | May 15, 2017

I was named executor on both my father- and mother-in-law’s wills. I had copies of the wills and other documentation I might need. So, imagine my surprise when I just recently found out that I am a co-executor on my own parents’ wills. These wills were prepared in 1992 and I was thinking: “When were you planning on springing this information on me?”

My brother and I are joint executors. You can name more than one person to serve as executor and a lot of people appoint their adult children as co-executors. The primary reasons are they want to treat their children fairly, and they don’t want to hurt any of their children’s feelings. By making sure they are all included in the administration process it can help share the burden.

These are perfectly valid reasons. It can be a good idea: or a terrible idea.

Drawbacks of naming co-executors

It is understandable that parents wouldn’t want to appear to play favourites in naming their executor. Continue Reading…

Generational Business Transition: The Apprentice

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | May 3, 2017

By Ian Campbell

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Synopsis

Love, hate or tolerate U.S. President Donald Trump know that the business-focused reality show he personally hosted for some years was not named “The Apprentice” without careful thought. No doubt that also was true of his hiring several of his children into his businesses.

Over the past 50 years I have advised many “strong personality” owners of both small and very large privately held companies on matters involving business valuation and transition. That experience suggests business owners – likely in combination with more than one advisor – often work to include one or more of their children in management positions in their businesses.

While there are exceptions, in my experience nepotism infrequently works as well as it is planned. That said there are some sparkling successes, where the latter often lead to successful multi-generational business transition – and long-term family business legacies.

So what high-level reasons cause private business owners to hire younger family members – effectively creating an “apprentice environment” – and to often do that when they themselves are in their “prime business years?”

This commentary explores those reasons: none of which are particularly complicated, and none of which are hard to understand in the context of family business owner aspirations.

Family business transition defined

In this article “generational business transition” means the transition of business ownership – and often management – to one or more succeeding generations. Multi-generational business transition means business transition beyond two generations.

Principal “family hire” reasons summarized

There are always exceptions to generalities. Further, in the case of family business transition senior family generation members in control of a family business may make wrong-headed assessments of next generation children or make ill-conceived business management related decisions about one or more of them for over-emotional reasons or simply as a result of bad judgment.

8 Diet Changes to lower your risk of Cancer

Posted By Sandy Cardy | April 28, 2017

Ask anyone what are the best things you can do for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, most often the answer (besides more exercise) is to start with managing trans fats and junk food in your diet.

No arguing with that advice. But what continues to be overlooked is our dependence on sugar, particularly when made in the form of a sweetener called fructose. In its worst form known as high fructose corn syrup, evidence continues to mount that its over-consumption is a red flag for encouraging cancer development.

The recommended daily limits for sugar are 35 grams for men and 23 grams for women. Yet many people blow away a day’s limit every day with one 50g soda. So how does one get to healthy levels without falling into depression at having to reduce your life-long allegiance to soda, juices, certain yogurts and salad dressings, not to mention candy, certain breads, granola and energy bars? (Go to Dr Mercola’s web-site for an exhaustive list of such foods.)

Why Baby Boomers like me can’t retire

Posted By Michael Drak | April 22, 2017

After having talked to numerous Baby Boomers lately, I’m convinced more than ever that the majority of we boomers really don’t want to retire, we just need a change, and some help figuring out what to do with the rest of our lives.

In this article I would like to share my thoughts on why some people feel the need for a significant change late in their careers and why traditional retirement is not the answer. I know these feelings because it happened to me. And I’ve been telling the story at a number of presentations Jonathan and I have conducted at various branches of the Toronto Public Library in recent weeks.

The photo shows one such presentation at the York Woods branch on Victory Lap Retirement, followed by a Q & A session. I love doing these presentations, as it gives me an opportunity to present to my fellow boomers and find out what is going on out there in the real world.

I Started Feeling Antsy Late In My Career

There were a number of reasons for the change I made and here they are in no particular order:

1.) I became very good at doing my job. This naturally happens when you do the same job for twenty plus years. You get comfortable, there is little challenge and you plateau.

2.) After 36 years of work I was tired of taking orders and being told what to do.

3.) I became bored with my job. That is what happens when you turtle and continue to play safe. I wasn’t learning anything new and I didn’t derive any satisfaction (happiness) from my job. The thrill was long gone and winning more sales contests and trinkets didn’t matter to me anymore. I remembered laughing a lot more earlier in my career. I knew I needed to laugh more before it was too late.

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