Wealth Managers for Colorado's Most Affluent Families are Hiring a New Type of Professional: Therapists

Excerpt from Denver Business Journal, published October 10, 2019

GROWING POPULARITY

Eric Walters, founder and managing partner of the Greenwood Village-based wealth management firm SilverCrest Wealth Planning, said he has found that his clients, who typically have between $5 million and $50 million in assets, fear revealing their wealth to their children will make their children spoiled.

“Clients are putting money farther away I think in hopes that their kids will become more mature,” Walters said. “Clients have more concerns about their kids becoming entitled.”

For instance, in the past, many families gave their children access to trusts when the children were 25, but Walters now has heard of families not giving away such access until children are 45.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES

Walters, of SilverCrest Wealth Planning, now has clients fill out a questionnaire with questions about what lesson they learned about money from their parents and how money impacted their childhood. Walters recalled some clients who grew up poor often are less compliant when it comes to taking investment advice. 

“There was a business owner who grew up poor and has a scarcity mindset who I’d make recommendations to,” Walters said. “He would nod politely and then never do a thing I said.”