A survey of those worth $3 million and up found a sharp divide between the way older and younger generations invest.
Risk-averse, younger generations are looking beyond traditional investments and showing interest in alternatives and impact investing, according to the survey by U.S. Trust.
While older investors said they rely on stocks, bonds and cash and aggressively invest in equities, wealthy millennials aged 21 to 35 said they only allocate 41 percent in stocks and bonds, keeping an average of 47 percent in cash.Despite their reluctance to invest in stocks and bonds, 39 percent of the millennial respondents reported owning private equity investments, and 37 percent reported owning tangible assets like investment property, farmland, timber and oil and gas properties.
An overwhelming majority of millennial respondents, 88 percent, said that a company’s impact on society and the environment is an important basis of their investment decisions.
Wealthy families still look to philanthropy and patronage of the arts as primary drivers of social impact, according to the survey. Seven in 10 of the survey’s respondents agreed that giving as a family makes their family stronger and closer, while even more said family philanthropy helps instill generosity in younger generations.
The generations differed on methods of philanthropic engagements. While older generations were more likely to make financial donations or volunteer, millennials were more likely than others to invest based on positive impacts and to engage in entrepreneurism to create social change.
In other findings, the survey found that increasing life spans can create problems as well as benefits, with majorities of respondents saying they are unprepared for unexpected health issues, long-term care expenses, caregiving and financially supporting aging parents.
Less than two-fifths of the adult children among the wealthy respondents, 37 percent, were confident that their parents would be able to use family money responsibly, while similar numbers of parents, 42 percent, believed that their children would be good stewards of family wealth.
Nevertheless, nearly two-thirds of respondents considered it important to leave an inheritance behind to the next generation, and 58 percent attributed at least a portion of their personal wealth to a family inheritance.
U.S. Trust conducted a nationwide survey of 808 high-net-worth households in January and February.
