François Sicart shares his lessons on life and wealth building from fifty years on Wall Street.
Good fortune helps, but lasting wealth and generational patrimonies are built through instinct, timing, and patience. No one understands that better than François Sicart, whose own fifty-year career on Wall Street originated from a simple twist of fate.
With a veteran’s expert wisdom, Sicart shares insights from his distinguished career in the service of families and individuals. From epic trades to manic bubbles and massive crashes, to maintaining a steady hand at the helm of two companies as the industry underwent many changes, Sicart managed to grow clients’ fortunes through it all. Not merely a book about investment, Luck Is Not Enough examines the delicate family dynamics involved in building a patrimony—and warns against the mistakes that make it so easy to lose a fortune between generations.
Luck Is Not Enough is a compelling reminder that one should train oneself to look for opportunities, not right in front of one’s nose but in less obvious places—and to have the boldness and vision to go for it, even when the crowd holds back.
Table of Contents:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A Fortunate Journey An Opportunity and An Education The Snowstorm That Changed My Fate Rise to Youngest Partner An Unfortunate Inheritance Contrarian Investing in America Market Bubbles and Crashes Protecting Families, Building a Legacy: Patrimony Management The Homme D’Affaires The Sicart Associates Family Past, Present, and Future:Seizing Opportunities
About the Author :
FRANÇOIS SICART graduated from HEC Paris and immigrated to the United States in 1969, where he joined Tucker Anthony as an assistant before rising to general partner. He founded Tocqueville Asset Management, growing it into a prestigious money management firm before leaving to start a thriving boutique company, Sicart Associates, with three other partners. He has fifty years of experience managing individual clients' accounts and their family affairs, and has sat on a number of bank and investment fund boards. He divides his time between New York, Paris, and Mexico.
Review :
"François Sicart has given us a riveting narrative that is both moving and instructive. The book interweaves a personal story of growth and adaptation in difficult cultural contexts with the evolution of a profound professional worldview. As a human document, this is an inspiring study of the sensitivities of transcultural life and is full of rare, philosophically rich insights from a long experience in the world of investment--insights that constitute a consummate vision of the global financial landscape.
Luck Is Not Enough is essential reading for both the informed general reader and the more specialized professional." ―Ralph Buultjens, Senior professor, New York University, Former Nehru professor, Cambridge University (UK),Toynbee Prize awardee
"I remember that my very first thought upon meeting François was wondering how someone could be so physically imposing yet so kind. Over the years of knowing him, I discovered a sharp-minded individual of great humbleness who always showed a real interest in his interlocutors.
Adventurer at heart, he appeared to me as someone who naturally thought outside the box. His curiosity, as well as his attraction to novelty and opportunities, made him stand out of the crowd.
In Luck Is Not Enough, François recognizes not only that he was lucky, but that he knew he had to take this chance, this chance that we sometimes don't see until it appears.
From Tucker Anthony to Tocqueville Asset Management, then to Sicart Associates, François became a successful asset manager, family office, and homme d'affaires (an elegant set of words he used in his book and that I had not read for decades in my French native language!).
I remember when François first explained to me his contrarian philosophy regarding financial investments. Initially amazed, I became deeply interested by the originality of his strategy, which greatly differed from the secure classical benchmarked approach used by the majority of asset managers of the time.
Despite his strong gut feeling, François would not rush investment decisions before understanding their implications. Would he have an interest for investing in a company based in China? He would simply book a flight and travel all the way there to be sure of his decision.
As François writes: 'The world is full of treasures hidden in plain sight.' For someone like me, taking my chance was to build, with trust and serenity, a very special friendship with him." ―Bruno Julien-Laferrière, Executive chairman, Banque Transatlantique
"It is incredibly rare to experience the life journey of a personne de confiance, a person whose life is given to serving others. In Luck Is Not Enough, you will take such a journey with François Sicart as he seeks to help the second, third, and fourth generations of families he has served throughout his lifetime dynamically preserve their families' well-being and their financial resources. You and your family will be well rewarded by the gift of his experience." ―James E. Hughes Jr., Author, Family: The Compact Among Generations, Coauthor, Complete Family Wealth; The Cycle of the Gift;,The Voice of the Rising Generation; Family Trusts
