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John Jennings Publishes First Book: The Uncertainty Solution

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Forbes
Investment Management

How Investors Can Brace For Election Uncertainty

As the U.S. heads into another presidential election, concerns are growing about potential delays in results and the risk of unrest, especially given the heightened polarization in recent years. After...
John M. Jennings, JD
John M. Jennings, JDPresident and Chief Strategist of St. Louis Trust & Family Office
Forbes
Investment Management

How To Manage Private Equity Capital Calls

Years ago, my colleagues and I were asked to evaluate the investment portfolio of a prospective client family. The portfolio was invested in a mix of traditional assets like muni...
John M. Jennings, JD
John M. Jennings, JDPresident and Chief Strategist of St. Louis Trust & Family Office
Investment Management

Five Steps to Align Your Portfolio with Your Values

When considering how to live a more authentic, meaningful life, most people think of things like spending more time with family, doing volunteer work, or giving money to charity. But...
Anna Sears, CFA®
Anna Sears, CFA®Principal
Forbes
Family Office

What Planning Should You Do Prior To Selling Your Company?

Congratulations! You’ve beaten the odds, built an enduring, valuable company, and are looking to sell it. If you’re like most business owners, you’re primarily focused on working with your investment...
John M. Jennings, JD
John M. Jennings, JDPresident and Chief Strategist of St. Louis Trust & Family Office
Family Office

Considerations for Shared Ownership of Family Property

Looking back, Sam, Jane and Nick’s childhood seemed almost perfect. They grew up in a loving extended family, played sports year-round and traveled. A highlight for the three siblings was their summers spent at Manor Grove, their family estate on the Outer Banks bought by their grandparents in the early 1900’s. When their grandparents died, the estate passed to their father, James, and his sister, Clara...
John M. Jennings, JD
John M. Jennings, JDPresident and Chief Strategist of St. Louis Trust & Family Office

IFOD - Interesting Fact of the Day

John Jennings, President of St. Louis Trust & Family Office, shares thoughtful, interesting and insightful nuggets of information in this daily blog.

November 18, 2024
The High School That Produced Two of the Most Infamous Experiments in History

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Essential Reading

We love reading. Our company Book Club gathers quarterly to discuss select books, podcasts, and more. Here's a list of what we've enjoyed.

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From the Archive

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Author Archives: Spencer B. Burke

Family Business

Facebook and Family Business

Facebook is a founder-controlled firm, with Mark Zuckerberg controlling approximately 60% of the voting power and owning about 15% of the total economic interest. This has been accomplished by using a two-class stock structure – Class A and Class B – where the Class B shares have ten times the voting power of the Class A shares. Zuckerberg and other insiders own most of the Class B shares; the Class A shares are publicly owned. This two-class structure has become common for founder-led public technology companies across the globe – think Google and Alibaba, for example – and in most initial public offerings today.
Spencer B. Burke
Spencer B. BurkeSenior Counsel at St. Louis Trust & Family Office
Family Business

What Families Can Learn From Family Businesses

Family business academics and consultants have developed some wonderful prescriptions for achieving and maintaining family harmony. In their businesses, families need to work together and make choices that affect family members differently. The efforts to nurture harmony are all about achieving the greater good of healthy collaboration among family members. The goal is better business decisions without sacrificing family health.
Spencer B. Burke
Spencer B. BurkeSenior Counsel at St. Louis Trust & Family Office
Family Office, Family Business

Family Business and the Role of the Family Office

The family business consulting industry has done a remarkable job educating families on how to run successful businesses and help lay the groundwork for the generational transitions and ownership transfers. We now regularly encounter outside advisory boards, fiduciary boards, family councils and family assemblies that assist families in better managing and operating this complex social system called a “family business.” As families grow and generations pass, these vehicles are essential to the maintenance of control and the successful operation of the family business enterprise. They promote the collective good and centralized decision making which are essential for success in business.
Spencer B. Burke
Spencer B. BurkeSenior Counsel at St. Louis Trust & Family Office
Family Business

Ford Motor Shareholders Vote to Keep Dual-Share Structure

The shareholders of Ford Motor Company voted by a margin of 2 to 1 to keep the dual share structure of the company which vests roughly 40% of the voting power in hands of the holders of the Class B stock. The Class B stock is held predominantly by members of the Ford family. The family owns roughly 4% of the economic interest of the Company.
Spencer B. Burke
Spencer B. BurkeSenior Counsel at St. Louis Trust & Family Office
Family Business

Lessons in Competitive Advantage for Families

A popular work in the field of Family Business is Miller and Miller’s Managing for the Long Run—Lessons in Competitive Advantage from Great Family Businesses (2005). This book attempts to explain why certain family-controlled businesses—firms such as Wal-Mart, S.C. Johnson, Bechtel, Cargill, etc.—have continued to out-perform their peers over many years. The catalyst for this study was that the 10-year survival rate for the family businesses included in Collins’ classic study, Built to Last, was much higher than that of non-family businesses so profiled (3X better). Why was this so? What differentiates highly successful family businesses from their non-family peers?
Spencer B. Burke
Spencer B. BurkeSenior Counsel at St. Louis Trust & Family Office
Family Business

Rupert Murdoch and the Downside of Voting Control

Rupert Murdoch owns voting control of both News Corporation and 21st Century Fox. Although getting on in years (currently 85 years old), there has been no suggestion that he has lost his business mojo—rather, the discussion frequently is about his likely successor—one of his two sons, James or Lachlan—and the question is whether either one has the capacity to run this media empire with same skills as that of their father.
Spencer B. Burke
Spencer B. BurkeSenior Counsel at St. Louis Trust & Family Office