An inheritance of stewardship

Stewardship is the word Elaine Chow returns to most often. She is managing partner of Trinity Capital, a single family office in Hong Kong, and traces its philosophy to her grandfather, who came through exile, war and hardship to settle the family in Hong Kong. He supported a large extended family and started a school that asked families of little means for only a nominal fee. In her words he was a very good steward of resources. The family's view, she says, is that whatever has been accumulated beyond what is needed should be shared with the community, without shaming the rich or discriminating against the poor.

So we believe that whatever we accumulated in the past that has extra should be shared to the community.

— Elaine Chow, Wealth Office

For Chow, stewardship applies to the next generation as much as to the wider community. She suggests patriarchs allocate sums of 100,000 to 500,000 to teenagers, and one to five million to family members aged roughly 25 to 30, for philanthropy or investment, with a showcase of the results. Her stated aim is that heirs see themselves as stewards who hold wealth temporarily before passing it on. She grounds this in her faith and in a belief that families are stewards of what they hold.

Managing what you do not own

Marco Poon expresses the same idea in the language of risk. When he once proposed US Treasuries to his family, the older generation asked whether he had seen the issuing country's balance sheet. He concluded that he had been applying an institutional lens to a family thinking 100 or 200 years ahead. That long horizon carries an obligation, in his view, and he argues that families must pass down values, stories and an understanding that the next generation manages the family's wealth without owning it.

The next generation should know the struggle of the previous generation. Without that, they cannot be humbled enough to understand that they are just managing the family wealth. They don't own it.

— Marco Poon, Wealth Office

Philip Marcovici widens the frame from the family to society. Borrowing the term optional society from a friend's book, he asks whether highly mobile wealth owners need to embed themselves anywhere, and concludes that they do. A family thinking beyond one or two generations, he argues, cannot expect its business to survive if the planet and the communities around it do not. He also sees philanthropy and impact as a way to draw family members who have no interest in the operating business into stewardship. He describes a daughter who planned to give away a couple of hundred million US dollars and instead became interested in stewarding it, and the family's larger assets, to do good over generations.

Value over display

Several guests describe a deliberate move away from consumption as a measure of wealth. William Louey, fourth-generation head of the Kowloon Motor Bus family, recalls wearing designer suits as a teenager at school in Britain. He now favours modest clothing and would rather fund a scholar than buy expensive shoes. He describes his family as always low-key, and argues that beyond a certain point inner happiness matters more than anything external.

It's not making the money. If you see your bank account grow, actually, it doesn't mean anything. It's just a number.

— William Louey, Wealth Office

Louey's view of ownership follows the same logic. Kowloon Motor Bus is part of Transport International, a listed company with other shareholders, and he argues that families do not need to own 100% of a business. In his view, each director brings a distinct ability to the board, which matters more than the size of a holding. He also recalls his son refusing an old Prada bag for school because classmates would laugh at brand names.

Howard Bilton, founder of the Sovereign Group, makes a related point with characteristic frankness. He describes money in the bank as of no use whatsoever, and calls his Portuguese vineyard a trophy asset that is rarely lucrative, an investment in happiness more than in returns. The vineyard nonetheless pledges 20% of its profit to the Sovereign Art Foundation, and Bilton sees farming as a good way to pass on wealth by making the recipient work for it.

Michael Macfarlane framed the whole series around this shift. In his account, the present is the era of the family office, where wealth is less about opulence and more about impact. He draws the contrast deliberately with the stately homes and palaces filled with Renaissance art that expressed British wealth a century ago.

Stewardship as active work

The guests who speak about stewardship rarely describe it as passive. Chow insists that even steady, income-producing holdings require engagement, since in bad times companies may need refinancing and a significant investor must deal with the banks. Marshall Jen describes a well-rounded family office as resting on three pillars. The first is investment to preserve and grow wealth, the second is spending to nurture social, intellectual, human and spiritual capital, and the third is donation, because he believes a family office ultimately exists to contribute to the family's home.

Poon's own response was to found JCP, a fiduciary advisory business on a net-fee model, to improve the quality of families' decisions so that investments are judged against the family's own objectives. Louey applies the same seriousness to his time, interviewing scholarship candidates personally because the money is his own.

What unites these accounts is a view of wealth as something held in trust across time. Chow speaks of stewards, Poon of managers and Marcovici of a society that is not optional. Each locates the purpose of wealth beyond its current holder, and each treats that purpose as work requiring attention, judgement and preparation.