私人銀行盯上家族企業接班 A boot camp for billionaires anxious to stay ahead

It is an overcast morning, and about 20 casually dressed men and women are standing on a terrace enjoying a break from their seminars. Lake Constance glimmers before them, surrounded by pristine Swiss countryside.

這是一個陰天的上午，大約20位穿着隨意的男女站在露臺上享受研討會的休息時間，眼前是波光粼粼的康士坦茨湖(Lake Constance)，周圍環繞着古樸的瑞士鄉村。

The panorama is breathtaking but the delegates are probably used to better. They are mainly billionaires, congregating at this UBS “boot camp” in Wolfsberg and hoping to gain insights into a topic that unites their 10 nationalities — how to pass their wealthto the next generation without family feuds and foolish business decisions.

這裏的景色美得令人窒息，但這些代表們可能早已習慣了更美的景色。他們大都是億萬富翁，聚集在這個位於沃爾夫斯堡的瑞銀(UBS)“新兵訓練營”，希望能夠更深刻地理解一項主題——如何在不引起家族不和、不做出愚蠢商業決策的情況下將他們的財富傳給下一代。這一主題將這些來自10個不同國家的人團結到一起。

Here they are stripped of some of the trappings of the super-rich. No staff are allowed. Everyone stays in the same style of hotel room to “create a community”, so there are no suites, just regular rooms with large beds, two comfortable chairs, sleek en-suite bathrooms and local art on the wall.

在這裏，他們被剝去了超級富豪的一些外在標誌。助理人員不許入內。每個人都住在風格相同的酒店房間裏以“創建一個社區”。所以，這裏沒有套房，只是普通房間，裏面有大牀、兩把舒適的椅子、光潔的獨立浴室以及掛在牆上的當地藝術品。

The wealth management arm of UBS casts itself in the role of adviser and educator for the three-day camp, which the Swiss bank uses to deepen client relationships and entice new ones to its private bank, the group’s most important division. Outside speakers are also used.

瑞銀財富管理部門在爲期三天的訓練營中將自身角色定義爲顧問和教育者。瑞銀利用這一項目來深化客戶關係，併爲其私人銀行（該集團最重要的部門）招攬新客戶。該項目也會請外面的嘉賓來演講。

Such families will already be surrounded by “myriad experts and professors and lawyers and all that”, says Joe Stadler, UBS’s head of ultra-high net worth business.

瑞銀超高淨值業務負責人喬•施塔德勒(Joe Stadler)稱，這些家族早已經被“無數專家、教授、律師等等”包圍。

The Swiss financial services group is trying to drum up business by offering something that is less easy to procure than on-call expertise, though: the opportunity to rub shoulders with the other guests staying in Wolfsberg’s merely-luxurious digs.

不過，這家瑞士金融服務集團正試圖通過提供一些比隨叫隨到的專家服務更不易獲得的東西來招攬生意：在沃爾夫斯堡並不豪華的酒店裏與其他客人接觸的機會。

“Like-minded families from across time zones . . . that’s what they really value,” says Mr Stadler.

施塔德勒說：“來自不同時區、有相同想法的家族……這是他們真正看重的。”

At this particular camp, attendees include a European family into their fourth generation of succession, trying to work out how to keep the family business together.

在這個特殊的訓練營，參與者包括一個傳承至第四代的歐洲家族，他們試圖找到保持家族企業完整的辦法。

The father tells the group he favours having a specialist run the business but his wife, sitting next to him, wants to keep things in the family.

家族中的父親告訴瑞銀，他更想任用一名專業人士管理企業，但坐在旁邊的妻子不想讓外人插手家族事務。

Across the room, an Asian father ponders what do to about a son who has no interest in leading his family business. An Egyptian dad frets about how he can keep his four daughters involved in the business when, traditionally in Egypt, married women are closer to their husbands’ families.

房間的另一頭，一位來自亞洲的父親正在發愁該怎麼辦，因爲自己的兒子對領導家族企業不感興趣。一位來自埃及的父親則在苦惱如何才能讓四個女兒在婚後繼續參與家族生意，因爲在埃及，已婚婦女通常與丈夫的家族關係更密切。

“I am greatly relieved to see different families with almost similar experiences,” says one attendee, who prefers to remain anonymous, adding that the camp had given him ideas he could present to his wider family.

“看到不同的家族都擁有幾乎類似的經歷讓我感到非常放鬆，”一位不願透露姓名的參與者說。他可以將在此次訓練營獲得的觀念分享給家族中更多的人，他補充說。

UBS, the world’s largest wealth manager by invested assets, is not alone in providing such a service to clients. Other private banks also run educational sessions to woo their richest customers, especially on the subject of younger family members taking up duties in the family empire.

按投資資產算，瑞銀是全球最大的財富管理機構，但它並不是唯一一家爲客戶提供此種服務的機構。其他私人銀行也推出了吸引富豪客戶的教育課程，尤其是針對年輕的家族成員接班家族企業帝國的問題。

UBS, which has identified “ultras” as the highest potential growth group in its private bank, spends a “low single-digit million euro” amount running camps like this annually.

瑞銀已經將“超高淨值”人士確定爲其私人銀行中增長潛力最大的羣體，每年花費“數百萬歐元”舉辦這樣的訓練營。

James Chappell, a Berenberg analyst, says the pay-off is hard to quantify: “Like a lot of what you do around ultra-high net worths, it’s sometimes hard to measure the value of the process, but I don’t see how it’s going to do anything but help.”

德國貝倫貝格銀行(Berenberg Bank)分析師詹姆斯•查普爾(James Chappell)稱，這樣做的回報很難量化：“就像許多你圍繞超高淨值人士做的事情，有時很難衡量這個過程的價值，但我相信這將有所幫助。”

The willingness of the super-rich to attend such courses can be viewed as another manifestation of the forces driving the sales of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

有一種力量推動了托馬斯•皮凱蒂(Thomas Piketty)的《21世紀的資本》(Capital in the Twenty-First Century)的銷售，超級富豪參加此類課程的意願，可以被視爲這種力量的另一種表現。

As the squeezed middle classes turn to the best-seller to understand how and why they lost ground to the wealthy, billionaires seek bespoke advice on how to maintain their increased advantage.

當被擠壓的中產階級購買這本暢銷書，想要弄明白他們如何（以及爲什麼）輸給富人時，億萬富翁試圖尋找爲他們量身定製的建議，以便維持自己增加的優勢。

Mr Stadler says the rich are indeed particularly concerned about preserving their fortunes now because the wealth held by the top 0.1 per cent has been rising for decades, so they fear an “inflection point” is coming.

施塔德勒說，富人如今的確特別關心保持自己的財富，因爲幾十年來，最富有的0.1%人羣所持有的財富一直在上漲，所以他們擔心“轉折點”正在到來。

Some of the other issues addressed — such as sibling rivalry — are more timeless. Others are cultural. “In the Asian culture, they send the children to places like Harvard, they come back and parents realise very soon that they are not only better educated they are also infected with quite a different culture,” says Peter May, honorary professor at WHU- Otto Beisheim School of Management, who hosts some of the seminars.

一些其他需要解決的問題——如兄弟姐妹間的競爭——更是一直都存在的。還有文化問題。“在亞洲文化中，他們把孩子送到哈佛大學之類的地方，但子女回來後，父母們很快意識到，他們不僅受到了更好的教育，還浸染了一種截然不同的文化，”德國科布倫次奧托貝森管理研究院(WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management)榮譽教授彼得•梅(Peter May)說。該學院承辦了一些這樣的研討會。

In many emerging markets, the tradition of the oldest son inheriting is still prevalent. “There are cases where the son has been groomed . . . and then the father finds out, after six or seven years, the guy is not [the best choice],” says Mr Stadler. “I’ve sat in some of these discussions with families.”

在許多新興市場，長子繼承家族企業的傳統依然盛行。“在某些情況下，一個兒子被選中進行重點培養……而六、七年之後父親發現，這個傢伙不是（最好的選擇），”施塔德勒說，“我曾參與一些家族的此類討論。”

Laura Pancera, UBS’s head of ultra-high net worth development, says cross-cultural exchanges — between, say, Europeans who already have a family office to manage their affairs and Asians considering setting one up — are particularly useful on the course.

瑞銀超高淨值開發部負責人勞拉•潘切拉(Laura Pancera)說，課程中的跨文化交流——比如已設有管理家族事務的家族理財室的歐洲人，與正在考慮設立家族理財室的亞洲人之間的交流——尤其有幫助。

When they are not wandering the low-rise complex chatting, the participants are ploughing through a curriculum that ranges from family corporate governance to “ruin probability”— the statistical likelihood of running out of cash.

當參與者們不是在樓層不高的酒店中信步閒聊，他們就會努力探討從家族企業治理、到“破產概率”（現金耗盡的統計可能性）在內的廣泛課程。

One issue UBS does not want to discuss publicly is tax, an increasingly sensitive topic after Swiss banks were forced to pay penalties for helping clients evade tax in the US. UBS paid $780m in a 2009 settlement and avoided criminal prosecution.

瑞銀不想公開討論的一個議題是納稅，在瑞士的銀行因幫助美國客戶逃稅被迫支付罰金後，這一話題變得日益敏感。瑞銀在2009年支付7.8億美元的和解金，避免了遭受刑事起訴。

At Wolfsberg, delegates also get first-hand accounts of botched successions, including from Beatrice Rodenstock, of the German spectacle maker Rodenstock (see box). Experts agree, though, that there is not just one path to success.

在沃爾夫斯堡，代表們還可以聽到關於失敗繼承的第一手案例，包括來自德國眼鏡製造商羅敦司得(Rodenstock)的貝阿特麗策•羅登施托克(Beatrice Rodenstock)的講述。但專家認爲，通向成功並非只有一條路徑。

Mr Stadler cites two extremes to make the point: the Haniel investment company in Germany, which traces its roots back to 1756 and whose more than 680 family shareholders are not allowed to run anything in the business; and the family behind the French luxury goods maker Hermès, which is much more hands-on in its approach. “Both are successful,” Mr Stadler says.

施塔德勒引用了兩個極端案例來證明這一點：創始於1756年的德國投資公司Haniel，其680多個家族股東都不被允許參與企業經營；法國奢侈品製造商愛馬仕(Hermès)背後的家族在企業經營上則更加親力親爲。施塔德勒說：“兩家企業都很成功。”

Lasting three days, UBS’s “family transition programme” does not claim to be able to convert ill-suited or reluctant successors into CEOs of the future. Nor does it offer the kind of entertainment some attendees might be used to.

這個持續三天的瑞銀“家族過渡項目”(family transition programme)並未宣稱，能把不合適或不情願的繼承者們變成未來的首席執行官。它也不提供一些參與者可能已經習慣了的娛樂方式。

“I’m not supporting bringing the young guys to a disco,” says Ms Pancera. “In the past we did a lot of that and what happened was they didn’t come in any more in the morning.”

“我不支持把這些年輕人帶進迪廳，”潘切拉說，“過去我們經常那樣做，而結果是他們上午再也不來上課了。”