Farm Financial Planner: Switching up a succession plan

When children change their minds, parents revise their farm succession plans

Central Manitoba farmers Lloyd, 59, and his wife Ellie, 58, have been running their grain farm for four decades. With 1,920 acres of land they own personally and 960 acres in their farming corporation and reasonably up to date machinery owned by the corporation, they face the common problem of generational succession. They have two […] Read more



Guarding Wealth: Investments for long-term growth

Guarding Wealth: Investments for long-term growth

The global slowdown is serious and widespread. Risk aversion is the new investment trend

Stock markets around the world have been tumbling almost in unison. The customary instruction from financial planners — stay invested and wait for the inevitable recovery — is tough to accept when, every day seemingly without let up, stock averages lose several per cent. The heartache will stop and the tumble from grace will end […] Read more

Farm Financial Planner: Widow wants to wind down farm

With no children wanting to farm, this widow wants to sell up and minimize taxes

A widow we’ll call Susan, 64, has a 1,120 acre farming operation in central Manitoba. She owns 800 acres personally and has another 320 acres in her farming corporation. When her husband — we’ll call him Burt, passed away, the estate was probated and quickly transferred to Susan. Now she wonders what will become of […] Read more


The inevitable rise in interest rates

Guarding Wealth: Interest rates are going to have to rise sooner than later. The trick will be in the timing

It is inevitable that interest rates will rise, but when that will happen, nobody knows. On Sept. 17, the U.S. Federal reserve announced that, yet again, the inevitable increase would be postponed, perhaps to December, perhaps beyond. Until then, the Fed will keep interest rates at the emergency level that has prevailed for half a […] Read more

VIDEO: Women in Ag Conference: Pt. 1

Grainews field editor interviews Gwen Paddock of RBC

When it comes to investing and financial planning, it’s important for women to be proactive. That was the message from Gwen Paddock, RBC Royal Bank’s national manager of agriculture and agri-business. Reporter Lisa Guenther caught up with Gwen at the Advancing Women West conference in Calgary to learn more.


Making the best of inflation

Government taxes what it creates. Here are some strategies for making the best of it

Making capital gains is the essence of investing. Yet many gains are nothing of the sort. They are only the illusory repricing of goods and incomes. Government drives inflation, then taxes stocks and bonds, incomes, house prices and even farms that are part of the repricing. If you think that this is unjust, you’re right. […] Read more



paperwork on a desk

Protect your off-farm investments

The bull market we’ve been living with could be nearing its end. 
Keep your capital intact through the downturn

It is a principle of finance that people will pay almost anything for what they don’t know. Stocks with dubious futures can soar in price when investors, fearful of being left out, jump on the bandwagon. Voices of caution are few and far between. Yet now they are being heard. In New York, where you […] Read more

Farm financial planning: Trusts can increase family trust

Trust avoids family infighting for retiring Manitoba couple aiming to keep 
their land in the family, but also keep their kids still talking to each other

In south central Manitoba a couple we’ll call Harry and Ella, both 64, face the challenge of transferring their 3,500 acre mixed grain and 400 cow operation to their three children. The problem is that two of the children, each in the 30s, don’t want to farm. It’s a good business worth about $4 million. […] Read more