It turns out that advisers to ultra-rich aren’t always so flush themselves. So, what happens, if, say, you spend a day on your client’s fancy yacht, then go back to your own tiny dinghy?
It’s simpler, more elegant . . . or just smaller.
“It’s an awkward position you’re in when you’re dealing with high net worth individuals and families because even if you have a pretty nice lifestyle at home you go on a trip and visit three or four clients and you come home at the end of the day and say, ‘Wow, how do I suffer through this five bedroom house and four bathrooms, and woe is me,’” BNY Mellon Wealth Management Managing Director of Family Wealth Services Thomas Rogerson told the Reuters Global Wealth Management Summit in Boston.
“I think that advisors that work with high net worth families very often have to struggle with that issue,” he said.
Rogerson is a funny case. He, himself, is heir to a fortune. His great grandfather was president of Boston Safe Deposit and Trust, a Massachusetts state-chartered bank taken over by Mellon, and started the Boston Foundation and Rogerson Communities philanthropic organizations. But, the money is essentially gone.
“It’s gone, I’m sorry to say, or I wouldn’t be here. I’d be a client, I wouldn’t be the employee,” he quipped.
