PRIME Initiative

Eight per cent of UK adults now want to start a business in retirement, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by Standard Life. And 85 per cent do not intend to stop work after they reach retirement age.

YouGov surveyed the opinions of 2,100 adults broadly representative of the UK population. A third (33 per cent) of respondents wanted to continue in full-time work after they reach retirement age. Roughly another third (31 per cent) wanted to carry on in a similar role but on their own more flexible terms. While eight per cent wanted to start their own business.

Commenting on the findings, John Lawson from Standard Life said “Quite simply, people do not get old like they used to. The baby boomers started a trend for redefining what is effectively their ‘third age’ and these findings point to a continued trend for re-writing the rule book for younger generations.”

The full report is not yet available at the time of writing but it should appear on the Standard Life site shortly.

See also Baby boomers don’t want to retire says pension firm.

Barbie has joined the ranks of the 50-plus, an event celebrated in characteristic style with an immediate facelift. Plastic surgeons at Californian-based manufacturer Mattel have given the world’s most famous doll “a more natural look, including a thinner jaw line, more almond-shaped eyes and fuller lips”.

It is notoriously difficult to judge people’s ages nowadays, as by and large people are looking much younger than their parents did at the same age. This doesn’t seem to prevent the all-too-common tendency by employers and some advertisers to lump all over 50s together as a single group, putting Baby Boomers and their elderly parents in the same category (often the same scrapheap). The mistake is to ignore the real differences in age, attitudes and ability to work between distinct generations.

In tune with today’s celebrity climate, let’s attempt to correct this by identifying some famous people born in the main years of the post-war boom. There are some surprises!

Selected Baby Boom celebrities by year of birth

1945: Ken Livingstone, Helen Mirren, Debbie Harry, Bryan Ferry, Rod Stewart - all 64 this year.

1946: Joanna Lumley, Susan Sarandon, Alan Rickman, Sylvester Stallone, Bill Clinton - all 63 this year.

1947: Alan Sugar, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Hillary Clinton, Salman Rushdie, Glenn Close, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elton John - all 62 this year.

1948: Prince Charles, Ozzy Osbourne, Samuel L. Jackson, Sven Goran Eriksson, Terry Pratchett - all 61 this year.

1949: Twiggy, Bill Nighy, Richard Gere, Duncan Bannatyne, Arsene Wenger, Martin Amis - all 60 this year.

1950: Richard Branson, Jeremy Paxman, Julie Walters, Bill Murray, Stevie Wonder, Robbie Coltrane - all 59 this year.

1951: Gordon Brown, Kevin Keegan, Michael Keaton, Jane Seymour, Sting all 58 this year.

1952: Vladimir Putin, Jenny Agutter, Sharon Osbourne, Liam Neeson -
all 57 this year.

1953: Tony Blair, Victoria Wood, Kim Basinger, Pierce Brosnan, Keith Allen, William Petersen - all 56 this year.

1954: Bob Geldof, Michael Moore, Annie Lennox, John Travolta, Jackie Chan - all 55 this year.

1955: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner, Ian Botham, Alan Hansen, Lesley Garrett - all 54 this year.

1956: Rowan Atkinson, Kim Cattrall, Mel Gibson, Martina Navratilova, Sebastian Coe - all 53 this year.

1957: Stephen Fry, Paul Merton, Daniel Day-Lewis, Dawn French, Donny Osmond - all 52 this year.

1958: Madonna, Prince, Sharon Stone, Michael Jackson, Kate Bush, Lennie Henry, Viggo Mortensen, Marg Helgenberger, Miranda Richardson - all 51 this year.

1959: Hugh Laurie, Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden, Ben Elton, Morrissey, Linzi Drew, John McEnroe, Kevin Spacey, Val Kilmer, Rupert Everett - all 50 this year.

1960: Nigella Lawson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Carol Vorderman, Hugh Grant, Sean Penn, Gary Lineker, Colin Firth, Antonio Banderas, Michael Stipe, Bono, Richard Farleigh - all 49 this year.

1961: Barack Obama, Barry McGuigan, Eddie Murphy, K D Lang, Meg Ryan, Nastassja Kinski, Boy George, Frank Bruno, George Clooney, Heather Locklear, Michael J Fox, Peter Jackson, Robert Carlyle, Sarah Brightman, Tim Roth, William Hague, Woody Harrelson - all 48 this year.

Perhaps even more suprising are some of those born in 1969, who will all be 40 this year - Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Lopez.

Worth a read: Advice for Barbie at age 50

Pension giant Standard Life has produced a very interesting report called The Death of Retirement. The key findings are that the current generation of older people are very different to their parents. Above all they want to keep doing things. Baby boomers want to travel, work - and even launch new business ventures. Retirement in its traditional sense is not a concept that appeals to them at all.

“Currently society constrains people into a post-65 mindset which is at odds with their ambitions”, says Honey Langcaster-James, psychologist and one of the report’s authors. “Government, society, industry – particularly the financial services industry, use entirely the wrong language.

“The messages currently conveyed to the next generation approaching third age imply slowing down, being less involved in society, being cautious, risk averse and preparing to be less active.

“Ageism is endemic and could have severe implications for the mental health of third agers because it will ultimately frustrate their ambitions.”

“A huge potential resource is left untapped by not engaging this population, drawing on their expertise, their drive to embark on new ventures and pursue society-enhancing activities such as voluntary work and enterprise.”

Honey Langcaster-James, psychologist

Large survey

The report is based on a large survey of 1,500 people aged 46 to 65 of broadly representative wealth living in the UK. It was then repeated among another sample of 1,000 people from the same age group but representing the wealthiest six per cent of society. So two contrasting groups of normal and great wealth were polled.

Setting the scene, the report says that people from this baby boom generation face a future in which they are likely to be more financially burdened than ever before. They may have to provide for parents who will live a long time and for children who may be financially dependent well into adulthood. This financial burden goes alongside having greater ambitions than any previous generation for their own future after the age of 65.

When asked about their intentions regarding working in the “long-term future”, 30 per cent of the sample representing the normal UK wealth range said they wanted to continue to be involved in work - but on their own terms. This rises to 42 per cent for the wealthier group, who were also asked what their own parents did. Only 15 per cent of parents continued to stay involved in work after retirement. This indicates a massive change between the generations.

When asked about starting a new business, six per cent of the sample of 46-to-65 year-olds of normal wealth want to embark on a new business venture in the future. There was only a slight increase to seven per cent among the wealthier group, so wealth does not seem to be a major factor affecting this aspiration. But the passage of time has certainly produced a change. Among their parents’ generation this aspiration was much less common - seven times less at retirement age.

“It is not that those approaching retirement want to stop working. As our research reveals, baby boomers want to remain active. The challenge for government, society and the financial services industry is how to enable them to remain productive to answer the dilemma of our ageing workforce.”

John Lawson, Head of Pension Policy at Standard Life

If you are over 50 then you are closer to retirement than most of the population. Even if you have a good 15 or 20 years of work left in you, it is likely that eventually you will want to stop. So what then will happen to the business you have built up - and can it help pay for the next stage of your life?

More than half of the respondents to a recent PRIME mini poll expect to sell their business as a going concern when they are ready to exit the business. A further 16 per cent of the olderpreneurs expect to keep it going by giving it to family or a friend.

Do you expect to eventually sell your business?

• 1. Yes - sell as a going concern 56% (49 votes)
• 2. No - will give away to family / friend retaining stake 15% (13 votes)
• 3. No - will give away to family / friend completely 1% (1 vote)
• 4. No - it will close but with sale of major assets 1% (1 vote)
• 5. No - it will close with sale of some minor assets 3% (3 votes)
• 6. No - it will close with nothing much to sell 22% (19 votes)
• 7. Other 2 2% (2 votes)

Source: visitors to www.primebusinessclub.com

The poll was run on PRIME’s other web site, www.primebusinessclub.com, which provides support for those starting or running a business after the age of 50.

A key finding was that about a quarter of the respondents expect their business to close when they leave. And the great majority of these don’t expect to be able to make much from selling the assets.

So there is a clear split between those expecting to get extra money from the business when they exit and those who don’t. This may be realistic - some businesses are worth something without the founder while for others the founder IS the business. The type of business is critical.

And so is its size. There is a well developed market for selling businesses over a certain size. Papers, notably Daltons Weekly carry classified listing of businesses for sale, and specialist business transfer agents will help with a sale in return for a fee. But once you get below a value of about £250,000 for the business the market gets less interested, and the costs involved in selling start eating into the proceeds.

PRIME is very interested in this process and whether there is anything we can realistically do to help the owners of smaller owner-run and self-employed businesses. Part of PRIME’s charitable mission is “the prevention of poverty in retirement”. Maximising the chances of business owners realising at least some of the value of their businesses when they pack it in would certainly help.

We hope to produce some kind of report or practical guide.

UPDATE: October 2008. We have secured funding to produce a guide, which we hope to do by the end of March 2009. The emphasis will be on producing a practical guide we can distribute free to older business owners. The money comes from the Pensions Education Fund, part of the DWP that we have worked with before. One of the objectives the fund shares with PRIME (and the charity Age Concern that PRIME is linked to) is the desire to improve the way people plan their finances in the run up to retirement. This can sometimes nip problems of later pensioner poverty in the bud.

Though our focus will be on producing a useful guide about what older business owners can do now under existing arrangements, we will take the opportunity to research wider issues as much as we can. Is there any kind of market failure when it comes to realising the assets of smaller businesses? Or is it just inevitable that below a certain size it is hard for market mechanisms to work?  Is it done better anywhere abroad, and if so are their any lessons we could learn? Are there other organisations working on the problem?

If you have got any ideas please contact me through the form below, or email prime@ace.org.uk

Ian Stobie.

Women’s web site More To Life Than Shoes has relaunched. Though not strictly a business web site - its stated aim is the more general one of “inspiring women to achieve their dreams”, it has lessons for anyone doing a web site aimed at people facing the daunting task of setting out on their own.

www.moretolifethanshoes.com sets itself the task of providing inspiration, support and encouragement. And by and large it succeeds.

Its basic method is to pile on the positive examples. There is interview after interview, story after story, about women doing things for themselves and succeeding. Though the relentless optimism can get a bit wearing, by comparison most sites targeted at small business are lifeless and dull.

Many of the inspirational examples are from the world of business, so this is a good site for confidence building. The expert section also contains much advice of a business nature, so overall this is a good free resource for female business starters.

The lesson for PRIME? You can never have too many case studies.

For what it’s worth the UK has dropped from 9th to 12th in the annual league table of global “competitiveness” produced by the World Economic Forum. This puts it behind the US and several of its European neighbours, notably the Scandinavian countries.

But taking a broader view the UK remains a very good place to do business since there are 134 countries in the survey. Chad comes in last, just behind Zimbabwe.

Top 12 for business

1. United States
2. Switzerland
3. Denmark
4. Sweden
5. Singapore
6. Finland
7. Germany
8. Netherlands
9. Japan
10. Canada
11. Hong Kong SAR
12. United Kingdom

So, with only a little spin, “UK remains in Top 12!”

The report says the UK dropped three spots mainly because of worries about access to capital, as well as concern about the general high level of indebtedness prevailing in the economy. But on its institutions and legal system, infrastructure, technology and may of the other things that affect ease of doing business, the UK is still among the best places in the world to set up shop. The list is based largely on a poll of 12,000 business leaders from all the 134 countries rated.

Only half of Britain’s small firms have a web site, according to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). But ALL of the visitors taking part in a recent mini-poll over on our other site PRIME Business Club either had a web site or planned one.

Does your business have a web site of its own?

• Yes 48% (22 votes)
• No - it doesn’t need one 0% (0 votes)
• Not yet but planning one 52% (24 votes)

Source: visitors to www.primebusinessclub.com

The two sets of figures may be compatible. Both polls show an approximately 50:50 split between web-site haves and have-nots. The different interpretations put on this may be like the proverbial half-empty or half-full glass.

Those commenting on the FSB poll have tended to take a half-empty view, decrying small firm’s lack of Internet ambition.

But since the PRIME poll also asked whether people were planning to set one up in the future, it is possible that the missing web sites may only be temporary - just something that people haven’t got round to yet.

Many of PRIME’s visitors have good reason to wait, as they haven’t yet set their businesses up either, or have only done so recently. So they may have other things to get sorted out first, before leaping into cyberspace.

If anything the mini-poll shows a vivid awareness among older entrepreneurs about how valuable a web site can be in business, with none of them saying it isn’t needed.