If there were ever any doubts about whether the wealth management industry is watching HBO's hit series "Succession," Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman put them to rest.
In remarks on
"I'm not just talking about the TV series, and I have definitely no plans to go out like Logan Roy," Gorman told listeners on the call.
For financial advisors working with wealthy or ultrawealthy clients, the tensions within the Roys and their News Corporation-like company, Waystar Royco, ring familiar as a pop culture reference to an aspect of client and
The manner that wealth transfers between generations represents
In an interview a few weeks ago
"There are needs and services that are required for every family of every wealth level," she said. "It's finding the right direct team that can service the needs that they have."
Becker sees the show as "really gripping with drama" around the sudden formation of "partnerships of convenience" between the characters that get established and fall apart, he said. He also detects a kernel of truth, since the leaders of families have a job that's "even more important than money," Becker said.
"It shows us how much dysfunction there can be in families," he said. "The first job of a family and the leaders of a family is to stay together as a family."
For the uninitiated, Logan and his children — Siobhan (played by Sarah Snook); Roman (Kieran Culkin); Kendall (Jeremy Strong); and Connor (Alan Ruck) — have been squabbling about nearly everything since the show debuted in 2018.
Despite being in his 80s, Logan refuses to yield control of anything and displays harsh cruelty toward anyone questioning him, especially his children. Others tied to the family by birth, romance ties or longtime employment, such as Marcia Roy (Hiam Abbass); Gerri Kellman (J. Smith Cameron); Willa Ferreyra (Justine Lupe) Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) and Greg Hirsch (Nicholas Braun) often run afoul of the family's strict and shifty standards. Their media and entertainment business swings between near collapses and giant M&A moves.
Industry topics
Tension often surrounds great fortunes, though. Navigating them across generations represents "one of the critical components of a successful firm working with families," Michael Tiedemann, CEO of New York-based wealth and asset management firm
"It ends up creating really longstanding, hugely intimate relationships," he said. "We really do know everything about our families and get involved in family dynamics."
The show's title itself evokes a central challenge facing the industry around
In a panel at the same conference,
"The reality is that, after you do a deal, those pretty much go away," Cabezas said. "So there are conversations, one-on-one conversations, on whether those are business-related expenses. I don't know how you can justify putting a family vacation through as a business expense. But there are interesting conversations that happen on the P&L side."
Much like the intensive deal talks on the show as characters fight for dominance in business and politics, Bhattacharyya explained that he spends most of his time in deals on the personal aspects of a transaction.
"This person is effectively selling their child — it's their third or fourth child, if you want to think about it — and that's personal," Bhattacharyya said. "It's something they've built up over 25 years, and suddenly, that brand name is going to be gone. That entity will legally not exist, and they'll be part of a broader, bigger organization. That journey, for them, it's a very personal one. And they have to get to know you better. This person has been the boss for 20 years, and suddenly, I'm their boss."
Logan rings true, some parts of plot don't
Logan's defiance toward his family and business advisors over the fortune and control of the company sparks memories of clients for advisors who have managed intergenerational feuds.
"Logan's reluctance to allow his children to benefit financially from his hard work and success is fairly common when estate and succession planning with ultrahigh net worth individuals," Angie Spielman, the founding partner of
Monish Verma, the CEO of Farmington Hills, Michigan-based
Like the Roy siblings' rivalry about which of them will take over Waystar Royco, Verma had a client who "was looking to undermine a sibling in order to seize control of the family business after their father had sadly passed," he said. "The situation resulted in an estate planning lawsuit that proceeded for more than two years and amassed over $1 million in legal fees."
Other parts of the story seem less plausible to Verma, such as the idea that any numbers in the character Lukas Matsson's company, streaming service GoJo, had not been totally vetted before Logan agreed to sell to the technology entrepreneur played by Alexander Skarsgård.
In addition, teams of lawyers or at least a family office likely "would have been involved in guiding a family with that level of power and wealth" after Logan's death, Verma said. An undated document written and amended by Logan and recovered in a private safe in his study after his passing signals an important lesson for advisors and their clients, though.
"Think of how Ken believed his father wanted him to lead the family because of the letter; yet no one was clear if the key line was crossed out or underlined," Verma said. "As a trusted advisor for couples and families, we aim to avoid these types of situations."
Spielman also finds the lack of a succession plan or a "key person" insurance policy hard to believe and noted that it's not common for all of a founder's children to be "in the running to lead their parents' company."
The team around Logan and the children clearly neglected the need to have a plan in place for his death. For advisors and clients, that crucial need for planning the next steps after Logan's death will stand as the most pronounced professional takeaway from the series — whether it reflects reality or not.
"I find it completely unrealistic that someone that had accumulated the amount of wealth he had, and was surrounded by a strong team of advisors, had no clear succession plan in place," Spielman said. "His health had already been compromised, so any capable estate planning attorney, tax advisor or insurance partner would have pushed to put something in place in the event of an unexpected passing."
