Succession is not something 82-year-old Rich Lister Max Beck ever gave much thought to. But there is one belief the retired property developer has always held; “siblings in business rarely work”. This, he suggests, should be the headline for this article, when he agrees to an interview with The Australian Financial Review Magazine.

The great wealth transfer under way in Australia is putting succession planning in the spotlight. In the past year, five members of the Rich List have died. And in recent years, the control of business empires – including Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Alan Wilson’s Reece Group – has passed as a new generation of Australians stand to inherit hundreds of billions of dollars from their elderly parents and take ownership of some of the country’s largest private businesses.