As we approach the festive season, spare a thought for the children of billionaires. These are joyless times for those holding out for an inheritance. As they climb aboard the private jet that will whisk them off to the yacht where a team of chefs will prepare their Christmas dinner, many will be wondering if Daddy has already cooked their goose. The super-rich are slaves to fashion. And the latest fashion is giving it away. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the world’s wealthiest men, started the trend by pledging to give away around $30 billion each. Now multi-millionaires everywhere are desperate to offload their excess zillions before it has time to damage the kids.
The buzz in the City is that philanthropy is back, after a gap of about 100 years. The hedge fund industry has led the way. Some specially created funds, like Ark (Absolute Return for Kids) and TCI (The Children’s Investment fund) give a proportion of their returns each year to charity. A charity auction organised by Ark’s glamorous founder, Arpad Busson, estranged partner of Elle Macpherson, raised £18 million in an evening. Private equity groups such as Permira and Alchemy have also set up trusts. Leading City figures such as Sir Ronald Cohen of Apax Partners and Stanley Fink of Man Group have given up their jobs to concentrate on philanthropy.
For all the self-righteousness in the City, however, the kids don’t have to worry too much just yet. British giving is peanuts compared with the US. At 0.7 per cent of our GDP, we only give half as much as Americans. And wealthy Britons are the most miserly of all. The richest fifth in Britain give 1 per cent of their income, while the poorest fifth give 3 per cent. Nor does anybody seem willing to live up to Andrew Carnegie’s dictum, ‘He who dies rich, dies disgraced’.
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