Professionals
Practice Areas
Louis Stresses Importance of Family Succession Planning
"Learning lab brings second-generation heirs up to speed", Philadelphia Business Journal
Robert H. Louis, Partner and Co-Chair of the Personal Wealth, Estates and Trusts Department and Chair of the Firm's Business Succession Planning Practice, was quoted in this article about the Delaware Valley Family Business Center's Next Generation Learning Labs, a center that aids with the transition phase when parents hand over a business to their children.
"The first generation was hard working and started with nothing," Mr. Louis said. "The second have it easier and the third generation is completely divorced from having to work hard, and have a sense of entitlement."
"Parents are afraid that if they give up the business they won't have any money to live on and the kids won't produce an income," Mr. Louis continued. "They think, 'I won't retire because I need and want the money.' They realize they're not the money maker anymore and that had been their meaning in life."
Meanwhile, Mr. Louis said, people are living longer and children might feel that their parents may never retire.
"We have kids in their 50s whose parents still haven't retired," he said. "I once heard a mother say, 'I'll stay here until you carry me out."