European Family Office CEO Takes The Plunge As Book Author

Tom Burroughes

23 January 2014

The family office business seems to have its fair share of book authors. Gregory Curtis, of Greycourt & Co in the US, has penned a much-acclaimed book aimed at wealthy families, The Stewardship of Wealth (your correspondent is reading it at present and enjoying it) and Mark Haynes Daniell and Tom McCullogh have added to the clamour. (See the review here.) And now, in Europe, a luminary of the industry, , argues, so Bloomsbury, the publisher says, that “the West has lost the spirit of entrepreneurial capitalism embodied in owner managed companies much more common in the Far East”.

The book aims to challenge the notion that the process known as globalisation should get the blame for low growth, unemployment and the West’s debt addiction (in fact, this correspondent has not heard that globalisation is regarded as a primary cause of high debt, rather that greater free movement of capital has increased the speed with which the consequences of high leverage makes itself felt across national borders). Pinto says the damage has really been done by a loss of entrepreneurial gusto, while CEOs have grown over-cautious and hemmed in by short-termist stakeholders.

Your correspondent is waiting for a copy of this book to decide how coherently Pinto makes his points in what is his publishing debut. Watch this space for a full review.