Greg Limb is a Partner at KPMG UK, where he also heads up the Family Office and Private Client team in London. Greg specialises in advising individuals, Family Offices (both UK and international), entrepreneurs, shareholders and Private Equity executives on their personal tax issues and takes a pro-active and innovative approach to tax planning.
What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in 25 years of private client work?
Greg: Good manners used to be responding to a letter within 48 hours; now if you haven’t replied to an email in 48 minutes it’s not responsive enough! All joking aside, that speed of communication and access to information is what society and professional service now demands.
Another big change has been the globalisation of wealth. Long gone are the days when the advice you’d give was focused on one individual, in one area. Families are generally more geographically disparate. Their lives are borderless and frictionless, and advisors have needed to adapt to accommodate those more complex, multijurisdictional needs.
For example, tax is often a universal language but it is never a universal operating system. Different countries' tax systems don’t always interact neatly, which creates many challenges. What we’re seeing is that as clients’ jurisdictional issues expand, not just in tax but in legal and other areas as well, they are trying to have a smaller number of advisors who act as ringmasters.
What does it take to be a good advisor and has that changed?
Greg: The fundamentals don’t change. Wealthy clients can afford choices. Why does Harley Street exist as a centre of medical excellence? Because people want to feel like they're being advised by the best and they want answers right away. They could, for example, just ‘Google’ knee pain and get lots of different answers, but they want trusted advice that is crafted and bespoke to them.
Ultra-high-net-worth clients prize the ability of an advisor to look at the picture across a big canvas, understanding not only their issues but also what other families of a similar size and nature are facing. At the same time, you still need to be skillful enough to focus on the details and bring real insight in your specialist area.
Is it harder for clients to keep their lives private and what implications has that had for reputation?
Greg: Absolutely it’s harder. People love to read about the wealthy and follow their lifestyles on Instagram. That’s why TV shows like Succession have been such a great success. At the same time the level of wealth some clients have now is way beyond where it was in the past - a millionaire used to be seen as wealthy, now a millionaire could just be someone who owns a house in the right London postcode.
There has always been an awareness of reputation for high-net-worth individuals. But, with ever greater public scrutiny, reputation is certainly discussed more and sits higher up the agenda.
How is inflation affecting approaches towards wealth preservation?
Greg: We’ve lived through 15 years of incredibly benign inflation and interest rates, but now people are very mindful of what inflation could do. Patient capital and direct investments are good hedges, but they don’t address the fact that many have been using their nest eggs to fund their lifestyles - and when the income from that nest egg starts to be less than their outgoings, then you start to drain capital, and that’s a real problem.
Do you see a change in attitudes among clients towards the purpose of wealth?
Greg: You could generalise and say that the next generation has a greater passion for and understanding of the social responsibility of wealth, though that would be somewhat undermining what the current generation of wealth holders are doing.
We are living through the age of ‘great wealth transition’, with a wider range of family members bringing a wider mix of ideas. A lot of people are wrestling with the legacy of their wealth, trying to reconcile what it does to define them as individuals and as families. And if a family doesn’t have any guiding principles and values, that’s when it can start resembling an episode of Succession.
About Greg Limb
Greg Limb is UK and Global Head of Family Office and Private Client at KPMG, with over 25 years of practical tax experience.
About The Lede
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