Why you should never retire
Pleasure cruises, golf and tracing the family tree are not that fulfilling
In an episode of The Sopranos, a popular television series which started airing in the 1990s, a gangster tells Tony, from the titular family, that he wants to retire. “What are you, a hockey player?” Tony snaps back.
Non-fictional non-criminals who are considering an end to their working lives need not worry about broken fingers or other bodily harm. But they must still contend with other potentially painful losses: of income, purpose or, most poignantly, relevance.
Some simply won’t quit. Giorgio Armani refuses to relinquish his role as chief executive of his fashion house at the age of 89. Being Italy’s second-richest man has not dampened his work ethic. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s sidekick at Berkshire Hathaway, worked for the investment powerhouse until he died late last year at the age of 99. Buffett himself is going strong at 93.
People like Armani, Buffett or Munger are exceptional. But in remaining professionally active into what would historically be considered dotage, they are not unique. One poll last year found that almost one in three Americans say they may never retire.
The majority of the nevers said they could not afford to give up a full-time job, especially when inflation was eating into an already measly Social Security cheque. But suppose you are one of the lucky ones who can choose to step aside. Should you do it?
The arc of corporate life used to be predictable. You made your way up the career ladder, acquiring more prestige and bigger salaries at every step. Then, in your early 60s, there was a Friday-afternoon retirement party, maybe a gold watch, and that was that.
The next day the world of meetings, objectives, tasks and other busyness faded. If you were moderately restless, you could play bridge or help out with the grandchildren. If you weren’t, there were crossword puzzles, TV and a blanket.
Although intellectual stimulation tends to keep depression and cognitive impairment at bay, many professionals in the technology sector retire at the earliest recommended date to make space for the younger generation, conceding it would be unrealistic to maintain their edge in the field.
Still, to step down means to leave centre stage – leisure gives you all the time in the world but tends to marginalise you as you are no longer in the game.
Part of the action
Things have changed. Lifespans are getting longer. It is true that although the post-retirement, twilight years are stretching, they do not have to lead to boredom or to a life devoid of meaning. Once you retire after 32 years as a lawyer at the World Bank, you can begin to split your time between photography and scrounging flea markets for a collection of Americana.
You don’t have to miss your job or suffer from a lack of purpose. If you are no longer head of the hospital, you can join Médecins Sans Frontières for occasional stints, teach or help out at your local clinic. Self-worth and personal growth can derive from many places, including non-profit work or mentoring others on how to set up a business.
But can anything truly replace the framework and buzz of being part of the action? You can have a packed diary devoid of deadlines, meetings and spreadsheets and flourish as a consumer of theatre matinees, art exhibitions and badminton lessons. Hobbies are all well and good for many. But for the extremely driven, they can feel pointless and even slightly embarrassing.
That is because there is depth in being useful. And excitement, even in significantly lower doses than are typical earlier in a career, can act as an anti-ageing serum. Whenever Armani is told to retire and enjoy the fruits of his labour, he replies “absolutely not”. Instead he is clearly energised by being involved in the running of the business day to day, signing off on every design, document and figure.
In Seinfeld, another television show of the 1990s, Jerry goes to visit his parents, middle-class Americans who moved to Florida when they retired, having dinner in the afternoon. “I’m not force-feeding myself a steak at 4.30 just to save a couple of bucks!” Jerry protests.
When this writer entered the job market, she assumed that when the day came she too would be a pensioner in a pastel-coloured shirt opting for the “early-bird special”. A quarter of a century on, your 48-year-old columnist hopes to be writing for The Economistdecades from now, even if she trundles to her interviews supported by a Zimmer frame; Seinfeld is still going strong at 69, after all. But ask her again in 21 years.
Former Credit Suisse, HSBC bankers target ultrarich with new bank
Two senior bankers at Credit Suisse and HSBC, Hayden Matthews and Glenn White, are establishing a new private bank targeting ultrarich families in Australia and Asia amid a boom in wealth management services.
Mr Matthews, the former chief executive of HSBC’s private bank in Australia will be the chief executive, while Mr White will be managing partner. Mr White was a director at Credit Suisse, which is in the process of merging with UBS after the two banks came together in a shotgun wedding in 2023.
Volans is to open its doors in May this year. It already has 17 employees on its books, an office in the Sydney CBD, and is in the process of applying for a banking licence through the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.
Glenn White, Hayden Matthews and Vanessa Stephens are starting Volans, a new private wealth group. Dominic Lorrimer
“We think wealthy Australians are tired of the merry-go-round of international private banks that come in and out of Australia every five years or simply fly in and out from Singapore each week. Similarly, we think the wealthy deserve more than the red-carpet retail banking that the Australian banks throw up as a perceived premium product,” Mr White said.
Australia is no stranger to banking start-ups. Barrenjoey Capital Partners launched in September 2021, with the backing of Magellan Financial and British bank Barclays. Volans also has two banking partners, but declined to reveal the identity of the institutions.
The start-up comes amid a rush into wealth management, and as investment banks take a renewed interest in the local market. LGT Crestone, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and HSBC have advanced their efforts to cater to Australia’s wealthiest families over the past year.
While the cost-of-living crisis continues to plague the majority of Australians, the wealthiest among us are getting richer, with the 350 largest family offices in Australia estimated to manage between $515 billion and $695 billion of wealth outside their operating businesses.
Mr Matthews and Mr White said Volans aimed to serve family offices and wealth managers, rather than individual clients. “There are great wealth managers in Australia already. We don’t see any value in trying to compete head-to-head with them in Australia like other banks do,” said Mr Matthews. Glide, Mr Matthews’ multifamily office which counts wealthy mining services entrepreneur Kevin Maloney as a client, is an early client of Volans.
The bank will offer Lombard and margin lending, multicurrency account management and multi-asset custody, access to global investment opportunities as well as tech-driven research and risk analysis. Lending is a key earnings driver for private banks as the rich often lend against some of their larger assets, such as their house or shareholdings, to release capital for re-investment elsewhere.
“We will ensure our Lombard lending product is the most competitive in the street but also the most flexible. [Unlike most private banks] we don’t force customers ... to reinvest or buy a branded product. We believe customers should be free to choose when, how or what they invest in,” said Mr White.
Mr Matthews and Mr White are also betting they can gain clients from being lighter on their feet and more tech-savvy than their competitors, describing other private banks as “lethargic”, and bogged down in “cumbersome bureaucracy”.
Mr White said they were vowing to open accounts within a day or two with the use of facial recognition, and offer technology platforms that integrate with the systems that wealth managers already use. “Most private banks take anywhere between six to eight weeks to open an account,” he said.
Vanessa Stephens, a former HSBC banker, is also on board the new venture.
Credit Suisse’s Australian business was long the leader in private banking, counting a significant number of The Australian Financial Review Rich List as clients.
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Primrose Riordan covers private companies and family offices from the AFR's Sydney newsroom. Primrose was previously South China correspondent for the Financial Times and covered foreign affairs and federal politics in Canberra. Connect with Primrose on Facebook and Twitter. Email Primrose at primrose.riordan@afr.com