Hands stacked-up together. Wealth inheritance.

“I need to meet everybody involved because it’s through those meetings that they get to see that your client is actually this business – it's the enterprise, it's the family. You're there to serve them”

Kieron Hayes, senior portfolio manager and wealth advisor at RBC Dominion Securities

“As advisors, we're not here to just tell our clients what to do. Rather, we're here to facilitate and ask a lot of questions”

Michelle Connolly, senior vice-president at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth

“We all have our areas of expertise. Whether you’re a banker, asset manager, or counsellor, the best thing we can do is educate each other for the common goal of a client”

Dan Brintnell, managing director at Overbay Capital Partners and a designated FEA

In Partnership with

Building trust with the next generation

Through its executive designation program, the Family Enterprise Advisor Program, Family Enterprise Canada (FEC) helps advisors navigate a sensitive time in a client relationship – the transfer of wealth within families

Read on

Julia Chung

Spring Planning

Michelle Connolly

Wellington-Altus Private Wealth

Kieron Hayes

RBC Dominion Securities

Dan Brintnell

Overbay Capital Partners

Industry experts

TRANSITIONING WEALTH among family members is a complex and often emotionally charged subject in which different values, priorities, and personalities can inflame disagreements over how assets should be shared. Professional wealth advisors play a critical role during this process, facilitating communication and understanding while providing clear financial advice. Unfortunately, this is also a sensitive stage for an advisor; statistics show this is a time when advisors are often replaced. Several professionals who hold the FEA designation and are members of Family Enterprise Canada (FEC) – a national community of business families and advisors – recently participated in a round table discussion on how some of the strategies, tools, and techniques they learned through the FEA Program have helped them successfully navigate the transfer of wealth and ownership among members of a family. Drawing on skills learned through the designation process, and based on their own experiences, they provided suggestions for other advisors on navigating this complicated stage of the client relationship.

Kicking off the round table, Julia Chung, co-founder and CEO of the consultancy Spring Planning, brought up one of the most fundamental, yet most interesting, questions facing a Family Enterprise Advisor. When you are advising a business family, she asked, just who is the client? Michelle Connolly, senior vice-president at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, answered first, saying that an advisor needs to

treat the extended family as the client, and look at the big picture beyond the individual person who may have generated the family’s wealth. This includes the family, the business, and the in-laws, she said. “They all have nuances and considerations and different perspectives.” This was a point that brought quick agreement from Kieron Hayes, senior portfolio manager and wealth advisor at RBC Dominion Securities, who emphasized the need to meet the family with a very open mind and broad definition of “the client.” “When I meet the wealth creator in initial meetings, I always let that person know that I really want to meet the entire family. I need to meet everybody involved because it’s through those meetings that they get to see that your client is actually the business – it's the enterprise, it's the family. You're there to serve them.”

Family Enterprise Canada brings together a wide range of professionals with diverse technical knowledge and experiences, building a network of like-minded individuals willing to collaborate and leverage a multi-disciplinary approach. “We all have our areas of expertise,” explained Dan Brintnell, managing director at Overbay Capital Partners and a designated FEA. “Whether you’re a banker, asset manager, or counsellor, the best thing we can do is educate each other for the common goal of a client.” Along with providing knowledge acquired from their professional backgrounds, advisors must build their toolkit of softer skills as well. For example, the ability to turn conflict into cooperation is a key responsibility of a successful FEA, Brintnell said.

After you've identified and understood who the clients are when you’re working with family businesses, there’s another important step. Many family members have their own financial advisors. Whom will they choose to advise them post-transition? Resolving this question will depend on how easily and effectively an existing family enterprise advisor can establish trust. Connolly warned against rushing into things too quickly because there’s a risk that you will misjudge the family’s priorities. “I'm a tax accountant, so my goal is, ‘Let's save the greatest

amount of tax possible.’ But is this, in fact, what they want? As advisors, we're not here to just tell our clients what to do. Rather, we're here to facilitate and ask a lot of questions.” This point resonated with Dan Brintnell. “Whether they are the founder, the CEO, daughter-in-law, or son-in-law, they should have a voice, and we need to draw that out. As Michelle said, each of us comes to the table with technical expertise in a particular area, and we can deliver on that technical expertise, but it's the comprehensive listening and collaborating with the family that make all the difference in the world.” When a family sits down to discuss a transfer of wealth, they often open up in ways that surprise even themselves. They will discuss things with their family enterprise advisor that they don’t feel comfortable discussing with many other people in their lives.

The transition of family wealth and business ownership and leadership should be a collaborative and holistic effort that considers each family’s unique circumstances and goals. As professional wealth advisors work closely with family members to ensure a smooth transition of assets, they must meticulously establish trust with every individual involved.

The role of a trusted FEA clearly goes beyond updating shareholder agreements and providing tax advice. It requires great emotional intelligence and sensitivity to go along with expert knowledge about finances, accounting, and the law. Hayes agreed with this wholeheartedly, drawing on an experience involving a client and his two children. “I had built their first accounts and really worked with them on basic investing and saving. One day I was travelling and I got a phone call. The father, who’d started the original business, had taken ill very quickly, and I got a phone call saying, ‘Dad's in the hospital and it doesn't look good.’ “I wasn't going to be able to make it back, but they said, ‘Kieron, Dad said everything's okay, call Kieron and he will put you in touch with everyone. He knows everything.’ “It really hit home,” Hayes said.

These experiences are powerful demonstrations of the need to build relationships with all members of a family business client’s family to better meet their needs and goals and to position your client relationship to transition with the transfer of ownership and wealth. “Pay it forward,” Brintnell said. “What we do isn’t just a job. It's a philosophy,” where the ultimate goal is a “cohesive family that knows, loves, and respects each other.”

% Expressing Concern

Retaining Advisors

of the rising generation leave their parents’ advisors once they have the power to do so

Family Enterprise Canada is the national go-to peer community, knowledge hub, and resource centre for families who work together and the advisors who serve them. We are the home of the Family Enterprise Advisor (FEA) designation. Family enterprise advising is a highly complex field that requires an exceptional level of fluency in the art and science of family enterprise. In a crowded field of professional advisors, there is one sure way to stand out: the FEA designation. It’s the global standard in advising business families.

Find out more

Dan Brintnell is a managing director at Overbay Capital Partners and a designated Family Enterprise Advisor. His clients include pension plans, foundations, endowments, family offices, and high net-worth individuals.

Overbay Capital Partners, Family Enterprise Advisor

Dan Brintnell

Kieron Hayes is a senior portfolio manager and wealth advisor at RBC Dominion Securities, as well as a designated Family Enterprise Advisor

RBC Dominion Securities

Kieron Hayes

Michelle Connolly is a senior vice-president at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth who is a noted expert on Canadian income tax, wealth strategies, and retirement planning, and is a designated Family Enterprise Advisor.

Wellington-Altus Private Wealth

Michelle Connolly

Julia Chung hosted the discussion. She is the co-founder and CEO of Spring Planning, which provides consulting and financial planning for individuals and families. She is a designated FEA.

Spring Planning

Julia Chung

In Partnership with

Building trust with the next generation

Read on

Dan Brintnell

Overbay Capital Partners

Kieron Hayes

RBC Dominion Securities

Michelle Connolly

Wellington-Altus Private Wealth

Julia Chung

Spring Planning

Industry experts

Julia Chung hosted the discussion. She is the co-founder and CEO of Spring Planning, which provides consulting and financial planning for individuals and families. She is a designated FEA.

Spring Planning

Julia Chung

Wellington-Altus Private Wealth

Michelle Connolly

Kieron Hayes is a senior portfolio manager and wealth advisor at RBC Dominion Securities, as well as a designated Family Enterprise Advisor

RBC Dominion Securities

Kieron Hayes

Overbay Capital Partners

Dan Brintnell

In Partnership with

Building trust with the next generation

Read on

Dan Brintnell

Overbay Capital Partners

Kieron Hayes

RBC Dominion Securities

Michelle Connolly

Wellington-Altus Private Wealth

Julia Chung

Spring Planning

Industry experts

Wellington-Altus Private Wealth

Michelle Connolly

Kieron Hayes is a senior portfolio manager and wealth advisor at RBC Dominion Securities, as well as a designated Family Enterprise Advisor.

RBC Dominion Securities

Kieron Hayes

Overbay Capital Partners

Dan Brintnell

Julia Chung hosted the discussion. She is the co-founder and CEO of Spring Planning, which provides consulting and financial planning for individuals and families. She is a designated FEA.

Spring Planning

Julia Chung

A trusted advisor

Published 02 May 2023

95%

of children keep their inheritances with their parents’ advisor

of wives keep their assets with same advisor

45%

Source: Engaging and Retaining Families – Investments & Wealth Monitor 2011

Wealthy parents' common concerns about their heirs

Topic of Concern

65%

Too much emphasis on material things

55%

Naive about the value of money

52%

Spend beyond their means

50%

Initiative could be ruined by affluence

49%

Won't do as well financially

42%

Hard time taking financial responsibility

Source: Engaging and Retaining Families – Investments & Wealth Monitor 2011

Learning from other advisors

Who is the client?

During those sensitive moments, it’s important to have the trust of everyone within the family. “You don't want to be perceived as mom and dad's advisor – that you're just here for mom or dad,” Connolly said. “We're actually here, as Kieron said, for the whole family.”

Building relationships

Brintnell highlighted the importance of this trust by turning to an example from his capstone project in the FEA Program, when the simple task of updating a shareholder's agreement for a successful family food business became very complicated due to deep, lifelong rifts among three siblings. The situation called for the team of advisors to step back and take a more holistic approach to the family’s conflict. “We created an environment in which they were first chaperoned, and then on their own together to communicate what was on their minds. “This had nothing to do with technical ability,” Brintnell explained. “And by the time we got through that process, they were hugging each other and crying for the first time in decades. That's what defined success. The other stuff was easy.”

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iNVESTMENTS

bEST IN WEALTH

Resources

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Within the next 3 years

Between 4 to 7 years

Between 8 to 10 years

More than 10 years

Not sure at this time

Expected date to transfer family business to the net generation

Source: Ready, Willing and Interested- or Not?, Family Enterprise Foundation, Oct 2021

16%

23%

25%

23%

13%

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