hollywood billionaire

Chapter 450 Good things don’t need sexiness
"You were amazingly wise today, Maddie, with your analogies and everything else."

Han Yi gave sincere praise.

"Hey, of course, because the whole thing is really similar to the music industry... Hey, wait, what do you mean by 'amazing'?"

Madison, however, tasted a different feeling from it. She pouted her lips and squinted at him. Her vicious and angry look was not very scary, but rather somewhat cute.

"You'll have to explain this carefully, sir."

"What I mean is that you acted smarter than the average Madison today, and the average Madison is already a genius." Han Yi spoke without blushing or beating his heart, "But, joking aside, yes, you made a very powerful point. My family office does need more manpower."

Since its establishment, the majority of registered employees of Han Capital Family Office are service personnel like Corey McIntosh. The only employee who is truly engaged in capital management is Antoine Gachet.

This situation exists not because Han Yi has spent all his attention on other things - well, this is part of the reason. The development of Han Music is complicated, and he needs to sort out every thread carefully. The integration between several business sectors, the group operation of Han Music, the selection of the CEO, the establishment of the music copyright acquisition fund, the selection of external partners... As the team gradually matures, Han Yi may not need to worry about specific business, but these general directions and strategies can only be controlled by him.

Of course, in addition to this, his picky and almost stringent selection criteria have also become an important factor hindering the further expansion of the family office.

The salaries of family office employees can be on par with, or even higher than, those of senior positions in private equity, hedge funds, and other financial companies. In Europe, the average salary of a CEO of an average family office is between 20 and 26 euros, with dividends equivalent to 21% to 30% of the salary. In the UK, the figure is 20 to 26 pounds, but the dividend ratio can reach an astonishing 41% to 50%. In addition, 9% of British family office CEOs can get an annual salary of more than 100 million pounds.

On the other side of the ocean, in the United States, the average salary of a family office CEO is generally between $25 and $33, and the dividends are similar to those in Europe, also in the range of 21-30%. But here, 13% of CEOs can get an annual salary of more than $100 million.

Including dividends, converted into monthly salary, that is 10 to 11 US dollars per month.

This salary level means that even if you rent a five-bedroom, three-bathroom, 78-square-foot luxury house on East 680th Street in Manhattan's most expensive Upper East Side, and take out a mortgage on a Maybach S7.5 with zero down payment, you will still have $8 to $ in disposable income each month.

Even if you spend all your money on food, clothing, and daily necessities, you can still save $800,000 to $900,000 a year. If you work for five years, you can easily buy a beachfront villa in Fort Lauderdale when you retire. If you are lucky enough to work for ten years, you can directly buy a villa in Bel Air after retirement and become neighbors with the billionaires you once worked for.

Therefore, there is never a shortage of talents in the recruitment market who are eager to apply for family office positions.

However, due to the particularity of family offices, billionaires often do not value basic financial skills when selecting applicants.

Most people are most concerned about the following points:
First, if you want to develop in the field of family offices, you must learn to be a jack of all trades. Unlike ordinary corporate positions with clear division of responsibilities, family office employees, especially senior executives, must handle affairs in multiple areas. Not only must they become qualified investment managers, but they must also take on the responsibilities of family affairs consultants, and sometimes even need to play the role of concierge managers.

Antoine Gachet is the best example. He not only helps Han Yi manage the assets he has already purchased, handles the trivial details of various transactions, communicates with USC about scholarship donations, supervises and manages the management of joint investment funds of Parkview Capital and Carlyle Group, but also has to find high-quality projects in the market, do risk assessments and feasibility reports, and sometimes even has to take on the responsibility of lifestyle management. For example, in Italy and France, he will use his understanding of the local area and the connections and resources accumulated over decades of career to provide advice and convenience for Han Yi's travel and consumption.

It's not that Corey McIntosh can't do it, but that everyone has his own expertise. Corey is familiar with North America and the British Isles. When it comes to his understanding of the lifestyles of the top circles in London, New York and Palm Beach, Antoine is definitely not as good as Corey. But in Europe, especially France, Italy and Switzerland, what services and tools do billionaires rely on for food, clothing, housing and transportation, and where to get these services and tools, Corey is far inferior to Antoine.

This is why family office employees must learn to wear multiple hats. Their primary task is not to complete the work assigned to them, but to make their employers' lives more comfortable, more enjoyable, and more convenient. Therefore, everyone needs to make the best use of their professional knowledge, network of relationships, and even life experience to serve the billionaires they have met and make them satisfied with the overall work of the family office, so as not to have a major change every two or three years, which would affect everyone's stable and affluent life.

"But it's really hard to find another Antoine."

"Why do you want to find another Antoine?" Xu Yiru held her chin and looked at him curiously. "I'm not saying that Antoine is not outstanding, but what do you think is his most trustworthy quality?"

"The one I trust most?"

"Yes."

"What I trust most is that he once served as vice president of the asset management division of Edmond Rothschild Group and president of Rothschild Heritage Management Group."

"Understand." Xiaoru nodded slowly, looking hesitant. "So you want to find someone with a rich resume like him."

"This actually has nothing to do with whether the resume is rich or not, or whether or not one has worked for Rothschild... Well, it actually has a lot to do with it, but it's not the kind of relationship you think." Han Yi organized his words in his mind to ensure that his subsequent wording would not cause any misunderstanding. "I really don't care about fame or surname. I only care about whether the person I want to recruit has really seen the world. When I say seeing the world, I mean truly observing and experiencing all the waves and patterns of this world."

"Antoine worked for a behemoth with total assets under management of 1500 billion francs and a solvency ratio of 22%. Its investment spectrum ranged from Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, to Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Alibaba, and everything in between. He was then appointed CEO of a subsidiary group, responsible for overseeing and managing all aspects of the Edmond Rothschild family lifestyle. From fine wines to five-star hotels to top restaurants."

"He has close contacts with the Rupert family in South Africa and Laurent Dassault, the heir to the French Dassault Group. He has experienced everything, tried everything, and seen everything. So when he sees my wealth, he will not be dazzled or intimidated, because he has managed far more than I have now. And he will not be curious about how deep the influence and power of this money is on things and people, because he has seen the magic created by money, which is much greater than the magic I can cast now."

"Most importantly, he is nearing the end of his career, his peak is long gone, and he is enjoying the last few years of peace on this journey, so he will not try to prove his ability to anyone by creating a high-risk, impressive portfolio. His ability, his resume, and his social status do not need to be improved."

"I apologize if I'm being too blunt..." Madison couldn't help laughing at this point, "But do you really just want to recruit a bunch of semi-retired seniors to help you play it safe? That doesn't sound like you, Mr. 'I'm going to kill Universal first, then hang Sony on a tree.'"

"That's why I need more Antoine." Han Yi also laughed. "You may not know it until now, but I have been telling Grace and Yuzhen that for an antisocial psychopathic industrial killer like me, I really don't need more stimulants. What I need is a sedative. I need a cautious person, a conservative person, someone who is slightly optimistic about the future but deeply skeptical of human nature. What I need is a healthy investment with a reasonable prospect, so that the family's inherited wealth can continue and everyone can enjoy life peacefully and happily."

“I don’t care how many wins my family office employees can help me win, as long as they try not to lead me to lose.”

The point Han Yi mentioned is exactly the second quality that most billionaires hope applicants have.

A perfect balance must be found between being more right and less wrong.

Billionaires become billionaires because they are able to make a lot of money in a certain field - this is not nonsense, but a reality that every family office employee needs to recognize. In terms of the ability to make money, few people working in family offices can compare with their employers.

Can Bezos's expeditionary employees build an Internet empire with annual revenue of 5748 billion US dollars in years?

How many years does it take for the CEO of Walton Enterprises to grow a low-cost supermarket in a remote town in Arkansas into 10586 stores?
Therefore, real billionaires and top wealthy families expect their family offices to become a safety net.

When the family founder is still alive, we help them take care of all aspects of life, supervise every aspect of their business, check for omissions and make up for deficiencies, and add icing on the cake. When the wealth is passed on to the next generation, we implement an active but steady investment strategy, not seeking merit, but avoiding mistakes. As long as the wealth can be passed on from generation to generation and has basic sustainability, then this family office is generally successful.

The words "maintaining the status quo" are easier said than done.

The core reason why this task becomes so difficult is actually the key points that Han Yi just mentioned.

If you are dazzled by money, it will blind you.

If you are afraid of money, it will take over your mind.

If you're curious about the power of money...

That would be the scariest scenario.

Even those heirs who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths found it difficult to resist the temptation of such curiosity.

Because although they can use money, they never actually own it.

"Is it really that hard to find someone like that? Someone who won't squander all his money?" Madison blinked. "I seem to remember that it was quite easy for you to recruit Antoine. It only took one interview."

"An interview after screening out 187 resumes... and after six or seven other interviews." Han Yi shook his head and replied, "There are a lot of scammers in this field. I mean, you'll see scammers in any field, but this is especially true in this field. We have actually been opening recruitment channels, but most of the resumes we received are unsatisfactory. Most of them claim to hold important positions in a large project or a prestigious company, but if you look deeper, you'll find that they actually haven't achieved anything outstanding in their careers."

"Of course, there are some really good ones. For example, there is a British man currently working in Hong Kong. His name seems to be Cameron Harvey or something. He is one of the three investment directors of the Hong Kong Land Family Office and has been working in this field for 20 years. Like Antoine, he is also close to retirement. Because his daughter is studying in college on the West Coast, he wants to find a job in Los Angeles and consider settling down here... Basically, he meets all the requirements, but do you know what the conditions he offered are?"

"What conditions?"

"First, he wants profit rights - if I buy a company for $1000 million and then sell it for $1500 million, as the manager, he will take 6% of the sales profit. Secondly, give him a certain amount of co-investment rights. In other words, if I want to invest in a company and he thinks that company is good, I need to lend him some money and let him invest with me, and he will pay me interest."

"Why would anyone want to do this?" Madison asked, frowning.

"Because, according to him, this is an agreement that is often reached between many family offices and executives around the world. Executives want to participate in investments that billionaires can participate in, but they don't have enough money, so they can only pay part of it themselves, and the family will advance part of it for the executives. Some family offices are willing to accept this condition because they think it can motivate executives to find investments with lower risks. Because the investment money advanced by the family is a loan, the executive needs to bear the investment risk himself. If the investment loses all, the money also needs to be returned to the family office."

"But personally, you wouldn't want to do that." Xu Yiru guessed Han Yi's thoughts.

"I... maybe in a certain acquisition case, under certain special circumstances, I would be willing to do this, but I don't like it to become a regular condition, like a gun pointing at my head, forcing me to do this." Han Yi explained to the two, "Moreover, in the email, this Cameron also directly asked me whether I would consider issuing virtual equity to senior executives in the future."

“Virtual equity?”

“If a family office’s structure is too complex, with dozens of trusts, partnerships and investment funds, and it is not easy to open up profit rights and co-investment options to employees, the billionaires may provide the office’s executives with a nominal share of an asset, fund or company to track performance and receive dividends, but without actual ownership.”

"He hasn't even gotten a job offer yet, but he's already started discussing incentives for five years from now." Xiaoru also frowned, "I don't really like people who do things this way."

"I also asked Antoine about this. He said that since the 2010s, the number and size of family offices have increased dramatically. Billionaires have become more and more greedy and have begun to compete with top private equity and hedge funds on Wall Street for talent. They have also been poaching talent from each other... There are only so many truly outstanding talents of the right age, so the salary levels, benefits and incentive plans have all been raised to an outrageous level."

"So this is one of the reasons why you want to recruit more Antoines." Xiaoru's eyes lit up, "Because you don't need an energetic man in his thirties or forties to drive the ship for you. You need a calm, laid-back, experienced captain in his fifties or sixties. These people are usually considered less employable due to their age, but for you, they are perfect."

"Yes, many billionaires don't like to have old people in their family offices because they themselves are old. They need young people to broaden their horizons and update their thinking." Han Yi tapped his temple and smiled.

"But you are younger than almost everyone in this field. You have your own ideas and opinions about the future, and you don't particularly need other young people to help you point the way." McGrady rushed to help him add, "You need the older generation to teach us history lessons."

"History, lessons learned, and the price people paid to learn those lessons. Exactly."

Having said that, Han Yi raised his index finger.

“History isn’t sexy, but sometimes, good things don’t need to be sexy either.”

"Why don't you tell that Victoria's Secret model?"

"That's not what I meant." Han Yi almost choked to death because he didn't drink the water. "She's not sexy... I mean, you're all sexy. No, that doesn't sound right. What I want to say is that all of you are the same sex... Don't worry about whether you're sexy or not!"

Han Yi waved his hands in despair, then placed the last piece of information on the table.

"This is the project that Antoine brought to me."

“There are no five-star hotels, no luxury resorts, no landmark buildings, and no billion-dollar conglomerates.”

"This, is not sexy."

“But I think it should be the most anticipated one among all the projects I can invest in individually.”

"AmericInn, take a look."

(End of this chapter)