PERSPECTIVE: When It's Time to Ground Wealth

By Livingstone Mukasa

A couple of years ago I was approached to advise a young professional making UGX 100M net per month.

There was concern that the professional’s leading advisor on money and investment was their mother, a retired teacher. Credit to the mother was that she was simply using the money to buy land.

However, the professional wanted to build a portfolio that would ensure that he never ever becomes broke again.

I sat down with the family and had a lengthy discussion and made some recommendations based on what I had observed.

I offered to execute the portfolio construction and to continue managing the inflow turning it into wealth at a fee but received no response thereafter.

I sense there was an unwillingness to pay for my services which by the way, doesn’t surprise me.

I have spent more than 20 years advising people how to make money and sustain their livelihoods and make economic progress. We also live in a country where people are generally poor, but this should not obstruct the fact that we also have people in our midst who are making serious money and need to be grounding wealth for generations.

These are the people that hardly know, where to turn for advice. Who do you turn to when you have a UGX 1 billion to send to work for the next 20 years? Would they try to sell you something if they found out you have money?

Who can you honestly talk to about your good fortune and still expect smart and coherent advice?

Lately, people like these have been reaching out to me. The Americans have a saying that if you have a horn go ahead and blow it.

In this regard I am one of a kind, I know what it means to have nothing, and I do know what plenty looks like. I have poor friends, broke friends, struggling friends and millionaire friends and I am well grounded in business and finance. Indeed, I can help you if you reach out. But why should you?

1. Making money in a poor economy like Uganda is tough as nails. However, some break through and climb the ladder into the top 1% of our society.

However, the mistake we make is that we think that because we can make money, we can also keep money and grow it. For those that make money as entrepreneurs, this is more likely the case but for professionals, it is far more difficult to pull it off.

Those that use their talents and skills usually need a coaching/managerial team. On this team should be a financial advisor. For example, if you are a boxer, you need a boxing coach but if you start to make decent amounts of money you will also need a financial coach.

This extends to highly paid corporate professionals too. I once worked with a couple that made about UGX 40M a month but were wallowing in debt. Good enough we sorted out their situation and greatly improved their economic trajectory.

2. One of the worst moves high-income earners make is turning to relatives as financial and business advisors. While this works at the lower part of the income ladder, it's highly ineffective in the top 1%.

For once you are dealing with money sums and projections that your people can hardly relate to and some have paid with their lives. Taking care of them is fine but giving them to manage the entire portfolio is suicidal.

3. Once you hit the good times and you are beyond survival, and things like retirement planning which consumes the middle class are settled, you need to be clear on your dreams and goals.

Your financial advisor will need to work with these to help you achieve them. You need to define what your legacy will be and seek to have proper estate planning.

4. Once you hit the 1% Club, learn to demand the best but be willing to pay for it. Have great tax accountants, Lawyers, business, and financial advisors because you are smart enough to realize your limitations. Be wary of people that want to lead you in uncharted waters they hardly know.

Usually, these are job seekers leading you to the slaughterhouse. For example, someone could suggest to you to set up a hotel.

What they don’t tell you is that they hope to be the hotel manager. You spend UGX 5 billion to build and furnish the hotel because someone wants a job that pays UGX 4M a month. You risk it all on a venture they can hardly comprehend.
In conclusion, we need those that have made some money to have a long-term outlook.

Society transforms when those that have resources start thinking beyond their lifetimes and this can’t happen unless we also have built the capacity to help them achieve their dreams. I am willing to play my part.

The writer is a financial advisor/lead business trainer for Living Business Education and CEO/Co-Founder, Four One Financial Services Limited.

He is also fondly referred to as 'The People’s Professor of Streetnomics' and he has authored two books 'Investing for the Future' and 'The Great Financial Rebuild'. Email: ceo@mayicard.co livinbusiness@gmail.com or call: +256772459167.