X-Message-Number: 27503
Subject: RE: CryoNet #27501 - #27502
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 08:54:47 -0500
From: "Regalado, Antonio" <>

Factiva Dow Jones & Reuters 

   


A Cold Calculus Leads Cryonauts To Put Assets on Ice --- With Bodies
Frozen, They Hope to Return Richer; Dr. Thorp Is Buying Long 
By Antonio Regalado
1566 words
21 January 2006
The Wall Street Journal
A1
English
(Copyright (c) 2006, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
You can't take it with you. So Arizona resort operator David Pizer has a
plan to come back and get it. 

Like some 1,000 other members of the "cryonics" movement, Mr. Pizer has
made arrangements to have his body frozen in liquid nitrogen as soon as
possible after he dies. In this way, Mr. Pizer, a heavy-set,
philosophical man who is 64 years old, hopes to be revived sometime in
the future when medicine has advanced far beyond where it stands today. 

And because Mr. Pizer doesn't wish to return a pauper, he's taken an
additional step: He's left his money to himself. 

With the help of an estate planner, Mr. Pizer has created legal
arrangements for a financial trust that will manage his roughly $10
million in land and stock holdings until he is re-animated. Mr. Pizer
says that with his money earning interest while he is frozen, he could
wake up in 100 years the "richest man in the world." 

Though cryonic suspension of human remains is still dismissed by most
medical experts as an outlandish idea, Mr. Pizer is not alone in hoping
to hold onto his wealth into the frosty hereafter. 

"I figure I have a better than even chance of coming back," says Don
Laughlin, the 75-year-old founder of an eponymous casino and resort in
Laughlin, Nev. Mr. Laughlin, who turned a down-and-out motel he bought
in 1966 into a gambling fortune, plans to leave himself $5 million. 

At least a dozen wealthy American and foreign businessmen are testing
unfamiliar legal territory by creating so-called personal revival trusts
designed to allow them to reclaim their riches hundreds, or even
thousands, of years into the future. 

Such financial arrangements, which tie up money that might otherwise go
to heirs or charities, are "more widespread than I originally thought,"
says A. Christopher Sega, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown
University and a trusts and estates attorney at Venable LLP, in
Washington. Mr. Sega says he's created three revival trusts in the last
year. 

In December, a trusts expert from Wachovia Trust Co., part of Wachovia
Corp., participated in the First Annual Colloquium on the Law of
Transhuman Persons held in Florida. His PowerPoint presentation was
titled "Issues Facing Trustees of Personal Revival Trusts." A Wachovia
spokesman confirmed the bank is named as trustee in one cryonics case
but declined to comment further for this article. 

To serve clients who plan on being frozen, attorneys are tweaking
so-called dynasty trusts that can legally endure hundreds of years, or
even indefinitely. Such trusts, once widely prohibited, are now allowed
by more than 20 states -- including Arizona, Illinois and New Jersey --
and typically are used to shield assets from estate taxes. They pay out
funds to a person's children, grandchildren and future generations. 

The chilling new twist: In addition to heirs or charities, estate
lawyers are also naming their cryonics clients as beneficiaries. If they
come back to life after being frozen, the funds revert back to them.
Assuming, that is, that there are no legal challenges to the plans. 

Thomas Katz, an estate planner at the law firm Ruden McClosky in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., believes cryonics could raise fundamental legal
quandaries. Upon coming back to life, for instance, would a person have
to repay their life insurance? "Our legal notion of death is pretty
fixed. The scientific notion might not be as time goes by," Mr. Katz
says. 

Christopher Gloe, a senior attorney with the Marshall & Ilsley Trust Co.
in Milwaukee, says his organization rejected an offer to invest money in
a cryonics case after the question went before the bank's management
committee several years ago. "We turned it down because we are a
conservative Midwestern trust company, and not likely to get involved in
an unproven entity such as a cryonics trust," said Mr. Gloe. 

Some 142 human bodies or heads, including that of baseball legend Ted
Williams, are now held in cold-storage at one of two U.S. cryonics
facilities, Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale Ariz., and the
Cryonics Institute of Clinton Township, Mich. 

People interested in cryonics are mostly male, frequently single, and
typically have a strong interest in technology and predicting future
events. And yet it's hard to know just how wide-spread the phenomenon of
personal revival trusts is, since some wealthy individuals may fear
ridicule if their hopes for immortality became known. Like in the tale
of Dr. Frankenstein's monster, "the image of local farmers climbing the
mountain with pitchforks and torches is still in people's minds," says
Kenneth Weiss, 63, co-founder of RSA Security, which markets SecurID
computer-user-authentication cards. 

Mr. Weiss, who retired in 1996 with RSA stock valued in the tens of
millions of dollars, says he plans to be cryopreserved and is now
working with a Swiss bank to stash money off shore. Mr. Weiss says he
knows several "billionaires" with similar plans but declines to name
them. "People who are really taking this thing seriously have no need
for notoriety," he says. 

The cryonics-trust phenomenon dates back at least to 1989, with the
formation by two American entrepreneurs of the Reanimation Foundation, a
trust based in Liechtenstein, the tiny European principality known for
its liberal tax rules. It offers memberships to people willing to put in
as little as $25,000, say clients. According to a promotional flier,
which asks "How Rich Will You Be?," a $10,000 investment could grow to
$8,677,163 in 100 years. "You'll be able to buy youth and perfect health
for centuries," says the pitch. 

One successful businessman planning for the future is Robert Miller, the
owner of Future Electronics Inc., a wholesale electronics distributor
based in Montreal. Mr. Miller, whose net worth is $4 billion, according
to the company, declined to be interviewed. 

However, Pierre Guilbault, Future's chief financial officer and
executive vice president, confirmed that Mr. Miller "does not want to
pass away" and has plans to put a "substantial" sum away for himself in
a trust for when he is cryopreserved. Mr. Miller gives generously to
charity and other causes, but Mr. Guilbault says "the question is who
earned the money. You earned it, and it's yours." 

No one knows just what future technology may bring, or what form a new
existence could take. Mr. Laughlin confronted that issue in a meeting
last August with his lawyers while drafting a trust. Mr. Laughlin opted
against allowing a mere biological clone to get his money. He insisted
whoever gets the funds should have "my memories." 

"We can't anticipate the science of the future, so we need some
definition that will be flexible and stand the test of time," says Scott
Swain, Mr. Laughlin's tax attorney. 

Since people like Mr. Laughlin may rest in icy slumber for hundreds of
years, protecting their assets from the living is apt to be a key
challenge. After all, even the most standard of trusts have long been
susceptible to dishonest managers -- not to mention challenges from
disgruntled heirs. 

When Jakob P. Canaday, a Florida investor, died in 2004 of throat
cancer, he left behind plans to stash his millions in a long-lasting
trust with directions that he would recoup the money if and when his
"human remains are revived and restored to life," according to court
documents. 

On the eve of Mr. Canaday's death, however, his two daughters produced a
new will, which left his fortune to them. 

Now there's a lawsuit pending in Broward County, Fla., Circuit Court.
Mr. Canaday's brother, Siesel "Bud" Canaday, a retired Wall Street bond
trader, says his sibling always wanted to be frozen and insists that the
second will is not valid. No matter how bizarre his brother's choices
may be, Mr. Canaday says, "it's tradition to honor the will of the
deceased." Daughter Michelle Canaday declined to comment on the case. 

Despite the uncertainties, cryonauts are choosing their investments
carefully. Edward O. Thorp, a hedge-fund industry pioneer, created a
cryonics trust in 1997 funded by a $200,000 life-insurance policy. At
73, he says he's now arranging a larger trust -- of between $1 million
and $50 million -- which he will direct to invest in no-load
index-tracking mutual funds to avoid management and trading fees. He
puts the odds of a person frozen today coming back at 2%. "I figure it's
worth a lottery ticket," says Dr. Thorp, who has a Ph.D. in mathematics.
The Orange County Business Journal estimated his net worth to be more
than $100 million to $300 million. 

In Arizona, Mr. Pizer says he hopes his wife will join him in cryonic
storage. And even if his trust money is somehow lost or stolen during
his time on ice, he'll be content just as long as he returns to life. If
he does, he says he'd use the opportunity to work hard and create new
businesses. "I made it the first time from nothing, and I could do it
again." 

--- 

Rachel Emma Silverman contributed to this article. 

Document J000000020060121e21l0002p



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