{"id":931684,"date":"2026-05-01T23:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T23:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/931684\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T23:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T23:27:15","slug":"billionaires-have-a-problem-money-cant-solve-they-dont-know-how-to-talk-to-their-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/931684\/","title":{"rendered":"Billionaires have a problem money can’t solve: they don’t know how to talk to their kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scene lasts about 30 seconds but communicates a lifetime of ultrawealthy dysfunction. Roman Roy, desperate to impress his aging father, announces with pride that he\u2019s bought Hearts of Midlothian<\/a>, one of Edinburgh\u2019s two great football clubs<\/a>, for his father, the swaggering Scottish-born media billionaire Logan Roy. The other Edinburgh club, though, also starts with an \u201cH.\u201d Its name is Hibernian FC<\/a>, or \u201cHibs,\u201d for short. <\/p>\n

Logan stares back at Roman. \u201cI\u2019m Hibs<\/a>.\u201d The implication is that Logan and his son know so little about each other and have so much money to spend that Roman essentially doesn\u2019t know whether his father supports the Mets or the Yankees. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the most devastating jokes in\u00a0the long run of the HBO<\/a> smash Succession, not because Roman bought the wrong football club, but because it reveals, in a single exchange, how communication does \u2014\u00a0or doesn\u2019t \u2014\u00a0work for ultrawealthy families.<\/p>\n

Over the next two to three decades, an estimated\u00a0$83 trillion in private wealth\u00a0will change hands in what analysts are calling the largest wealth transfer in modern history. There\u2019s just a little problem: ahead of the Great Wealth Transfer, parents and their heirs are barely talking.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the (arguably) striking finding buried inside UBS\u2019s new\u00a0Global Next Generation Report 2026, which surveyed more than 170 members of the inheriting class \u2014 the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the world\u2019s ultrawealthy. The conclusion: the greatest threat to a smooth generational handoff isn\u2019t a market downturn or an estate-planning error. It\u2019s awkwardness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a willingness to talk about the family wealth,\u201d one anonymous next-generation family member who\u2019s not currently involved in managing their family fortune told UBS researchers, \u201cbut the conversations never quite happen. I think we\u2019re all waiting for the other side to start.\u201d<\/p>\n

The silence is deafening<\/p>\n

UBS\u2019 numbers tell a story of avoidance masquerading as privacy. While roughly\u00a080% of next-generation heirs\u00a0say they feel meaningfully informed about the family\u2019s finances (48% say they understand all aspects, while 30% report strong knowledge of specific areas), far fewer say they understand the\u00a0purpose\u00a0behind those assets. They know the numbers. They don\u2019t know the\u00a0why.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tax and technical side was always well covered,\u201d one next-generation CEO of a family business told researchers. \u201cBut the human side \u2014 communication, personal ambitions and preferences \u2014 was much less clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

That disconnect tracks across generations. Nearly\u00a0half of all surveyed heirs\u00a0say the previous generation conducted no structured wealth transfer at all \u2014 leaving successors to inherit not just assets, but ambiguity. \u201cThere was no strategy or vision,\u201d said one heir. \u201cSo when my time comes, I want to have a transparent structure and a common vision of where we want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

They feel it before anyone speaks<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say that the next generation needs to be told there\u2019s money. They feel the weight of it long before a word is spoken.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou feel a sense of responsibility from a very young age,\u201d one heir told researchers. \u201cEven when parents never talk about the wealth, you feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A total of 56% of next-generation members\u00a0believe conversations about family wealth should begin in childhood or adolescence \u2014 ages zero to 19 \u2014 yet the majority say their first real wealth discussion didn\u2019t happen until early adulthood. Families who start earlier, the data shows, experience materially smoother transitions of both responsibility and assets.<\/p>\n

The calculus isn\u2019t complicated. Early conversations reduce anxiety; they don\u2019t accelerate burden. \u201cMy dad started early by simply taking us along to business visits and making us a part of his conversations with partners and investors,\u201d one heir explained. \u201cSo when the actual topic of wealth transfer came later, it already felt normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where tension lives<\/p>\n

When friction does emerge in ultra-wealthy families, UBS found that it rarely starts with a bad investment. It starts with a misread expectation. According to the report,\u00a0communication breakdowns are the single most common source of conflict\u00a0\u2014 cited by 33% of respondents \u2014 ahead of disagreements over spending habits (27%) or fairness (24%), although another 16% chalk it up to lack of clarity over roles, arguably another communication issue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The pattern is grimly familiar: families avoid discussing death, succession, and expectations until a health crisis or business milestone forces the issue. \u201cDiscussing death is an emotional topic,\u201d said one next-generation business leader. \u201cTo continue the legacy, you need to talk about it now, not later.\u201d<\/p>\n

When silence becomes the default long enough, someone eventually has to schedule a meeting to break it. The\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0reported in November 2025 on a rising phenomenon among the ultra-wealthy that recalls something out of organized crime<\/a>: the formal\u00a0\u201ctrust reveal<\/a>.\u201d This is a staged, often advisor-led meeting in which heirs are ceremonially informed of their inheritance for the first time.\u00a0The very existence of the trust reveals something about how far the avoidance has gone: families so uncommunicative about wealth that the inheritance conversation has been outsourced, formalized, and calendared like a board meeting.<\/p>\n

Compounding the problem is a structural issue. Fewer than\u00a0one in four\u00a0ultrawealthy families have formal governance in place \u2014 written constitutions, defined family roles, or documented communication protocols. The rest are improvising. \u201cBefore we started to work on this systematically, I had big fights with my father when discussing wealth,\u201d recalled one next-gen family officer. \u201cYou can\u2019t underestimate the fights. It ruins families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separate research also strongly suggests<\/a> that this communication is deadly for fortune longevity.\u00a0According to a CEOWORLD analysis of wealth transfer patterns, family miscommunication and internal conflict \u2014 not market forces \u2014 are the leading cause of generational wealth loss.\u00a0It\u2019s the basis of the old proverb that wealth moves from \u201cshirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations\u201d \u2014 and the data consistently bears it out: around 70% of family wealth dissipates by the second generation, and roughly 90% by the third.<\/p>\n

Heirs are done waiting<\/p>\n

What\u2019s changed \u2014 and what the UBS report makes clear \u2014 is that the next generation is no longer content to be passive recipients. They are, increasingly, initiating the process themselves.<\/p>\n

In families where the wealth transfer is already underway, the share of heirs actively\u00a0driving\u00a0the process has nearly doubled \u2014 from 13% to 22% \u2014 compared to families that haven\u2019t yet started. These aren\u2019t reluctant inheritors hoping for a windfall. They\u2019re prospective stewards asking for a seat at the table.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest challenge is to convince my father to give my brother and me a chance to prove that we are ready to shape things,\u201d said one fifth-generation family member. Notably, the report finds that in fourth- and fifth-generation families, more than\u00a040% of heirs\u00a0say expectations existed \u2014 but they had a meaningful say in shaping their role. The dynastic script is being rewritten.<\/p>\n

The hardest question in any boardroom<\/p>\n

The irony is not lost on the advisors who work with these families. Men and women who have built global empires, negotiated billion-dollar deals, and managed thousands of employees often find themselves paralyzed when the audience is their own child.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hardest part of wealth transfer is the silence around expectations,\u201d Sarah Salomon, Head of Family Advisory and Philanthropy Services at UBS Americas, writes in the report. \u201cAlignment begins with asking,\u00a0\u2018What do you want your life to be about?\u2019\u00a0\u2014 not\u00a0\u2018Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll inherit.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The data backs her up. Families with strong communication governance are\u00a074% more likely\u00a0to be actively planning and transferring their wealth than those without it. The mechanism matters less than the habit: regular check-ins, clear agendas, documented decisions. \u201cI recently had an issue with my father,\u201d one heir noted. \u201cBut because the process was written down, dealing with it was easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life is imitating art, as of 2026, with Hearts of Midlothian launching an unlikely bid to win the Scottish Premiership<\/a> and upset \u201cThe Old Firm\u201d of the Glasgow giants, Celtic and Rangers. But what would Roman and Logan Roy say about it if they were real? They probably wouldn\u2019t discuss it at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scene lasts about 30 seconds but communicates a lifetime of ultrawealthy dysfunction. Roman Roy, desperate to impress…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[2380,51,474,2499,16,15,3623],"class_list":{"0":"post-931684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-billionaires","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-personal-finance","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-wealth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}