How to keep the peace for growth of family wealth

To define the problem, you must first stand back and seek to explain how you got to where you are today. Break the problem into its component parts and see if a solution presents itself. ILLUSTRATION | JOSEPH BARASA | NATION MEDIA GROUP 

What you need to know:

  • To define the problem, you must first stand back and seek to explain how you got to where you are today.
  • Break the problem into its component parts and see if a solution presents itself.

I have a large coffee estate in Kiambu which I have run since the 1970s. I am now 69 and still fit. What troubles me is that none of my three sons want to go into coffee farming and they have been trying to coax me into real estate, which I have little time for.
I have told them to wait or buy their own farms to develop their “real estate dreams” (my exact words to them) and they have not taken this kindly. After a few days, I thought about the issue and felt like I had upset them or was too harsh.

But I have a feeling that their approach was disrespectful. I would like to call them for a meeting to sort things out and I need your help so that I can approach the issue in a sober way and not overreact.

Maybe my reaction is due to my advancing age. Somebody said I would feel insecure by letting my shamba go.

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You will be happy to hear that your problem is not unique in the sense that the transition of family affairs from you to your sons (and I hope daughters) is a challenge many people of your generation are facing.

Sadly, however, there is no single solution and every family must find its own solution, much in the way that you are now trying to do. Before you call a meeting to “sort things out”, I would suggest that you first define the problem.

To define the problem, you must first stand back and seek to explain how you got to where you are today. Break the problem into its component parts and see if a solution presents itself.

From your question, I see the basic components as being you as the father, your children, the farm, and finally the future. There could well be other components but for now let us examine how each of these impact on the potential solution.

Starting with you. What is your background? Are you, for example, a full time coffee farmer who made his riches in the 70s during the days of Chepkube (coffee smuggling that gave some people lots of money while others went to jail)?

If you made lots of money, are you one of those who invested wisely and are now the proud owner of real estate in the city? Are you, in other words, well invested in other areas of the economy and the coffee farm is just one in a long series of assets?

What does your wife think about your plans for the farm and what role has she played in the growth of the coffee farm?

In the alternative, are you a career civil servant who got lucky in the 70s and was able to access funds to buy the large coffee farm that you then left others to run? Were you mostly a telephone farmer who retired 10 years ago and who is just beginning to enjoy rural and farming life for the first time?

What does the coffee farm mean to you? Is it a source of income or simply a source of pride and dignity?

If you have always dreamt of a life in a farmhouse with your wife growing old gracefully together, then your sons are totally misplaced in their thinking about their parents’ future.

You are only 69, and chances are that you will live for another 15 to 20 years. What are your dreams for you and your wife? Coffee farm or block of flats on your doorstep!

The second component is your children. How many are they, how old, and what is their level of education? Are they single, married, and how well have they settled in their respective careers?

How many live in Kenya and how many are in the diaspora? If living abroad, do any of them plan to come back? Are any of them into farming or real estate development? Is any one of them an engineer, architect or project manager already working in a successful real estate establishment in Kenya or even abroad?

Relationships

Is their request part of their plan to achieve a realistic life goal you might be able to help them with?

How do their long term plans fit in with yours and to what extent do they plan to be around you and their mother as you both grow older? Can you stand your son or daughter-in-law or do you think she is misleading your lovely child?

What are your children telling you about their relationships with you now and into the future. Do they for example, see you as a wise man who has kept the land for them and allowed for capital appreciation to the point where now it is ready for exploitation?

Or do they view you as a slow, indecisive, old man who has lost many opportunities in life and who continues to hold on to the land without any idea of how to make some money?

Then of course there is the land itself. Exactly where in Kiambu is your land? Is it near Nairobi and one of the main roads or you are deep in the coffee farms far from the city centre? Depending on its location, you might be under different levels of pressure to convert the farm into real estate.

Since it is, in your words, “a large coffee estate in Kiambu”, how about having your cake and eating it by converting part of it into real estate and keeping the rest green for your coffee, cows, pigs and chickens! It does not have to be either or. It can be both.

Finally, how about the future, yours, theirs and your grandchildren’s? Where does the collective future of your family lie and to what extent is your view of that future aligned to that of your children? Have you thought about it, and have you shared it with your wife and her children.

Before you call a meeting “to sort things out” you clearly have many issues to consider!

This article was first published in the Business Daily