Training Camps

Citi Private Bank’s event included a session on buying art because the asset class is increasingly seen as an investment, with global art sales hitting a record in 2014 as new collectors drove up prices for trophy works.

Yet art is an illiquid investment and difficult to value, as the team betting on Kate Moss found out. The millennials spent $95,000 of their fake $100,000 allotment on the piece in the mock auction.

Other banks including Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, UBS Group AG and Coutts, a unit of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, run training camps for clients’ children. Held in countries including Singapore and Switzerland, the programs usually span several days to more than a week and participants often fly in from around the world. The seminars -- which cover topics such as sustainable investing, philanthropy, entrepreneurship or how to protect your family reputation and brand online -- are free to attend while clients generally cover their own travel and accomodation.

Reviewing Art

During the Citi Private Bank event, experts from Christie’s helped participants review a mock catalog of about a dozen works. They advised each team on criteria to determine value: a work’s quality, rarity, condition and history of ownership.

Attendees then bid on pieces that have been, or will be, auctioned including an Andy Warhol polaroid print of Giorgio Armani and a pair of ear clips by Seaman Schepps formerly owned by the Duchess of Windsor. Perrin then showed the teams what the works really sold for so they could see if they spent their money wisely.

Wells Fargo’s Abbot Downing and U.S. Trust, a unit of Bank of America Corp., have a financial education curriculum with individual coaching instead of boot camps. Some parents or grandparents require heirs to take it before telling them how wealthy they are and what they will inherit, said Chris Heilmann, U.S. Trust’s chief fiduciary executive. In June, the bank added a program for teenagers as young as age 13.

The young adults who attended Citigroup’s event have jobs and even some master’s degrees, but their parents want them to hone skills that are unique to their wealth -- such as bidding on a Picasso or taking over a family business, said Kanagasabapathy.

“There is no tolerance today for an incapable CEO,” he said.