Smashing The Legacy Key

Even by Asian standards, Douglas Myers is an incredibly wealthy man.

I spotted him in the middle of last year with several Asian businessmen seated at the Pacific Coffee cafe in the largest building in Hong Kong and the phallic symbol of its capitalism, International Finance Centre (IFC). He still looked incredibly slim and fit for a man of almost seventy years old. Myers stands out even more in Asia than New Zealand with his tall lean frame, intricately tailored suits and polished shoes. He fits more into the Italian or French way of self presentation than someone from the Antipodes. He was quite the pin-up boy in his youth. A man about the town and always in the company of seriously hot chicks. He married a couple of them.

This intro leads me to the unforgettable quote repeated to me at the establishment of ACT. It is one of the few quotes that my mind cares to remember and I frequently trot out versions when I come across extremely wealthy people.

When asked how Myers stayed so slim having to attend so many functions with nibbles and alcohol, a certain witty observer who remains nameless responded:

“Douglas is so rich he can pay people to eat for him”.

It is such a great and simple line that I stole it and repeated it (with personalized variation) to a squat, slightly porky and self-important Chinese gazillionaire at a meeting shortly after I arrived in Hong Kong. This in response to a proud direct enquiry by the monopolistic, monster-mogul whether I had ever met anyone as rich as him before.

He was so impressed at the humour that when he stopped bellowing with laughter after our translator had sound-mixed my colloquialisms to Cantonese, that he got his assistant to pass me a blinging platinum and diamond pen I can safely assume was worth more money than I actually had at the time, and pointed at the paper so I could write it down. He laughed again before telling the assistant that he needed to lose more weight so he could use it as his friends would be impressed. Wealth in Asia is a status symbol regardless of how monopolistic your enterprise is or many government contracts you have bri….earned. Fatness in Asia is a sign of laziness that is only excused if you are extremely rich. When you can mix boasting about being rich with being slim, you are on to some serious face being earned.

I was prompted by a long-time fan of my blog that Myers had participated in a Sunday interview. They even emailed me the link here. It was alleged Myers was teary eyed in the interview. Not wanting to miss such a viewing extravaganza and slightly in disbelief at the claim I loaded up the interview on the MacBook Pro and watched it, flower on the top of his left chest and all. It was an extraordinary drop of television that is for sure.

Now as a professional dealing with matters, politics and the problems of inter-generational wealth on a daily basis I have a theory that as soon as people start to talk about “leaving a legacy” or “family tradition”, they should immediately at law be stripped of all directorships, trusteeships, shareholdings and positions of power over wealth. It is ugly talk that inevitably can only lead to silly decisions being made, such as taking stupid business risks or not enough risk at all, giving away all their money to charity, to spendthrift beneficiaries or women with big tits. Yes, if Doug Myers was CEO of a publicly listed company Douglas Myers Limited, this Sunday interview would see the stock price tumble as sensible analysts advised investors to bail out.

On a much smaller scale, my own father, a senior Fonterra rural analyst, commentator, and general agricultural consultant (ie. dairy farmer) and Murray Deaker talkback disciple has started to think like this. Well it’s been going on since he hit 60 really. I wished before such a decline for an enduring power of attorney to be granted to someone independent without an obviously mushy brain, such as a heady capitalist partner of Russell McVeagh or PwC who can advise on contacts to turn the trust capital into something more productive than grasslands with a too closely related person sharemilker. Alas, no, Parliament has not seen the light and passed such “mental incapacity” laws to include such public declarations of soft centered “legacy” mush. I am therefore left helplessly watching the mental decline breathing through my nose hoping that the net result is that he has worked out enough money in reserve for the rest home fees, or an extension to live on the back of the section of the guilty beneficiary of this legacy nonsense.

Unlike so many of us, Myers is not blessed with a clean sheet from birth. His start was heavily inherited from the 1860's. Expectations were placed on him from the beginning, as he regaled memories of his Grandmother berating him. Sunday called the Myers family the closest thing New Zealand has to aristocracy. They are not wrong. To get to where he has, Myers has benefited and been cursed with a Myers family legacy. Both in tradition and finances. Reminders are all over Auckland from parks, streets and town halls. It is from what I observe daily in my professional and frequently in my personal life among children of the wealthy and famous, a horribly draining thing, a legacy.

Which makes it all the more mysterious that Myers is obsessed to the point of tears now about leaving a legacy himself, breaking down on camera at the point of talking about being paranoid, his son and dying. For Myers, as brilliant businessman as he has ended up, will always have a nagging doubt in the back of his mind, “Could I have done all of this from absolutely nothing?”. These things you worry about I am told when you have millions in the bank, too much time on your hands and your hair is starting to mount every morning in small piles on the pillow.

Myers is a litigation Partner and QC’s proverbial wet dream. He has been involved in more than most. At law school we were treated early on to tuition on the nasty battle over control of the family business, Campbell & Ehrenfried in the 1970's, where Myers and members of his family were involved in dispute. He is tough enough to litigate against his own family members and of course win. Students held vigils at Lion Breweries during their tour and tasting sessions. It is little wonder Myers has given money to Auckland University with such close ties. Myers is an intelligent and highly educated man and was blessed with one of the best educations that money can buy. He now sponsors other students to have a similar opportunity to his own who may not necessarily have had the chance. This is nice stuff. The older Myers gets the more likely he is to discuss business and personal matters with media. He speaks eloquently but not that charismatically at ACT functions and lectures. He is not in the same class as others similar in the public speaking category. He is simply not that engaging. His wisdom, once closely guarded is now more public. Yet he still has an enigma of sadness about him and as close to a sense of regret that you can feel without actually having regrets. This is quite evident in the Sunday interview. Something is bugging him.

At this serious point I digress as I am reminded of a time in Sydney with a particularly nice but dim friend of mine who loved drinking Lion Red. In her defence this was before we could afford champagne. We were about to head at her request from department stores David Jones across to Myer. She proudly asked me whether Myer served Lion Red because she was thirsty. I replied in the negative, explaining what the store was without explaining the ownership structure and she then corked out something like, “own a bloody brewery and his shop is dry”. I then knew that I was in charge of all expenditure decisions shopping that afternoon.

Myers represents the good and bad about the 80’s and 90’s in New Zealand business depending on your view. He was head of the Business Roundtable in its most active and controversial phase, champion of the free market reforms of the 80's and is a strident supporter of ACT, bless his heart. It is criminal really that he was never Knighted for his services to business and the community. There are far less worthy names who were.

One strange phenomenon we are now witnessing in Myers and his contemporaries is that the business machines of their era are getting older, losing their hair, going mushy and worried about their legacy by way of both tradition and finances in the world. All of a sudden they are realizing that it does not really matter how much money they have as they are going to just like the rest of us, one day…................die. These once invincible, formidable men of the boardroom and masters of the select committees are publicly turning into wilting petals. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to watch so needs to stop. No more soppy media interviews would be a good start.

Sir Roger Douglas has been doing this for at least the past twelve years since I have known him. Even though his legacy of tradition is blatantly obvious to the outside world, so much so that every child ever studying economics should be caned for not knowing who he is and what he and the Labour government did. They dragged New Zealand kicking and screaming from protectionalist Muldoonism into a modern (potentially very) competitive economy. His only failing was that he could not continue the changes required to do the job and that failing was not his own fault. Still, it is nothing to mope about. There is no excuse for anymore self-indulgent wallowing. Someone please kick the man…...gently of course.

When parents talk legacy they are thinking of their children (or tradition) first and foremost which I guess is why they are so emotional about it. Yet the problem with incredibly wealthy or successful people is that more often than not their children have far more exciting lives than they do by NOT being like them but by using the resources that the parent has built up. Regardless of the “chicken or the egg” dichotomy of the situation, the children are a reminder of the fun these guys (and girls) could have had in their lives if they did not spend so much time and energy earning the squillions of dollars of cash in the first place.

In some ways this may be satisfying but by in large it must be highly depressing once the realization becomes them. Myers in the Sunday interview speaks with passion and vigour about attending the Grammys and rubbing shoulders with "the Sting". Bankrolling musicians such as Gnarls Barkley is not necessarily a core "Myers" business activity, but one that he obviously now thinks is rather cool and entertaining. His only other glint in the eye came when asked "Isn't it a relief not to be described as New Zealand's richest man", he lights up, grins and answers very glibly "who knows"? Sunday has his wealth listed at $675 million. One does wonder if it is not considerably more.

We see a rejection of the concept of legacy by way of both tradition and finances more in the children and now grandchildren of baby boomers (whatever generation alpha we are called). Well the baby boomers from the 1960’s who were the straight, square ones. My father still claims The Beatles ruined his youth as chicks only went out with boys who had their hair cut like John, Paul, George and Ringo. Many of us have watched (in some cases both) our (straight, square 60's child) parents slave 60 hour weeks, scrimp and save to build their asset, pay taxes to help people who don’t work as hard as they do (usually the dreamy hippies of the 60’s who toked up all their money on travel and good drugs; and their offspring), and still our parents have experienced half of what we have.

They are now and always have been too afraid to do things we consider entirely natural such as travelling to weird places in the world at short notice, driving our cars at 100 miles an hour, quitting our jobs without having one to go to or inhaling new and exciting illegal substances because they are just too afraid of what others may think of them. Even with their asset rich lifestyles our straight, square babyboomer (not the dreamy 60’s hippie) parents are generally afraid to have any sort of fun at all. They remain content and happy sitting at home in a Lazyboy with Ugg boots on watching the 6 o’clock news and live any fun vicariously through their children or more sadly Paul Holmes, Simon Dallow and John Campbell.

The net result is that the children and grandchildren of average baby boomers will turn to the high borrowing, high living irresponsible George IV bleeding lifestyle that many have commenced already. Because they don’t see any benefit to behaving like their parents did. This is worsened by parents and grandparents who leave their unearned “legacy” solely in cash or assets rather than necessarily a good education about the tradition of their legacy and a slap on the backside if the kid turns out to be a lazy slob.

If the wealthy or successful parent has the expectation of high achievement of their children comparable with their own then they are going to always be disappointed. It is indeed scarce that a child will outperform their parent when a legacy of either tradition or finance is as huge as that which men such as Myers and Douglas have created and will leave. Rupert Murdoch is another prime example. His children have all tried and compared with his standard, have failed. It has all ended in tears and on the brink of ripping the Murdoch legacy completely apart. Myers accepted that his own children did not and should not be part of the business when he sold off Lion Nathan to Kirin. This was perhaps the nicest thing he could have done for them.

One use of the term legacy key is in an educational context as an American college fraternity term for a key that supposedly unlocks all the doors at the University. You may recall in Beverly Hills 90210 when Steve was given a legacy key and broke into the administrators office to change his grades? A legacy key is basically a frat-boy myth and euphemism for cheating. If you look at it this way leaving a legacy therefore as self-indulgent as it is, can never really be a good thing as it is either cheating (if given in finances) or a burden (if given in tradition and status) for the next generation.

The best legacy you can leave in this world is to actually leave nothing. No expectations, no aspirations, no regrets and a clean sheet. Give those that are left behind the chance not to live in your shadow or with the expectation that they will finish your dreams but live their own life.

In other words rather than worrying about “legacy”, Myers and his contemporaries would be far better served to stop the random moments of excessive introspection, cheer the f**k up about being old, realise that their legacy of tradition is already cemented and not necessarily capable of being controlled by them in the first place, go out and simply spend their legacy of finance enjoying themselves while they can.

Witness the fun this guy has spending his fortune: Alan Gibbs

And for all our sakes stop appearing in media interviews until they are happy about being alive and absolutely and completely loaded.

It could be worse, you could be old, dying and............... p.................oor.