CREATIVE CAPITAL: MANAGING PRIVATE WEALTH IN A COMPLEX WORLD

by Gregory Curtis

Building great wealth is enormously difficult. But maintaining that wealth across the generations is an even greater challenge. In Creative Managing Private Wealth in a Complex World, Gregory Curtis outlines the investment secrets of the world's wealthiest families. These "best investment practices" for taxable investors represent the only certain way to preserve and grow private capital in the face of taxes, inflation, investment costs, and the conflicts of interest that are endemic in the financial advisory business.Managing capital successfully is naturally important to wealthy families themselves. But Curtis argues that the role of wealth goes far beyond private advantage. Wealthy families, says Curtis, lie at the very heart of American distinctiveness, of the vigor, resilience and creativity that have made America the most successful nation in history.Creative Capital begins with a discussion of the crucial role private wealth plays in America's remarkable economic and cultural success. In Part Two of Creative Capital, Curtis discusses several broad issues that wealthy families face, including understanding investment risk, conflicts of interest among financial advisors, and the challenge of making sound investment decisions. Part Three is a step-by-step guide to the successful management of liquid wealth, focusing on best investment practices from portfolio design to manager selection to monitoring investment performance.Wealthy families have already made an important contribution to America's remarkable economic success-their wealth is society's recognition of that contribution. But families can, and must, continue to contribute to America's strength for many generations to come through the creative management and deployment of their capital. Creative Capital is an owner's manual for those families.

454 pages, Paperback

First published November 18, 2004

Reviews

[Elruin Elmsroot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creative Capital presents a broad overview of private wealth management, covering asset allocation, diversification, risk, taxes, trusts, money managers, hedge funds, private equity, real assets, and investment policy.
Its main strength is the emphasis on preserving and organizing wealth rather than simply chasing returns. The discussion of governance, investment policies, manager selection, and tax-aware investing provides some useful practical principles.
However, the book often feels more conventional than its title suggests. Much of the investment material relies on familiar asset-allocation and portfolio-management concepts, and the treatment of several subjects remains fairly surface-level. There is not enough genuinely original thinking about capital allocation, structural market opportunities, economic regimes, or how exceptionally large pools of wealth can obtain differentiated advantages.
The book is therefore useful as a broad introduction to the mechanics and philosophy of private wealth stewardship, but it does not consistently deliver the depth, originality, or strategic insight that the subject might promise.