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The firm plans to move eight healthcare-focused investments into a so-called continuation vehicle, the people said, asking not to be identified because the conversations are private. It’s seeking to raise $500 million for the new India fund strategy and has approached investors on the plan, the people added.
The assets include Omega Hospitals and RG Scientific Enterprises Pvt., one of the people said. Morgan Stanley Investment Management invested in Omega in 2024 with a minority ownership and bought a controlling stake in RG Scientific that same year.
A media representative for Morgan Stanley declined to comment.
Morgan Stanley Investment Management, a $1.9 trillion manager, invested in the assets through its alternative arm, Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia.
The continuation fundraising comes as more investment firms look for exit routes beyond initial public offerings and mergers. Globally, the secondary market rose 48% to $240 billion in 2025 from a year earlier, according to a report by Jefferies Financial Group Inc.
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SYDNEY—ANZ Group shares are on course for their best day since 2020 after the country’s fourth-largest lender cut its first-quarter costs by more than analysts had expected.
ANZ on Thursday reported an unaudited cash profit for the three months through December of 1.94 billion Australian dollars, equivalent to US$1.37 billion. That was 6% higher compared with the same period a year earlier.
Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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What High-Earning Professionals Should Know About Long-Term Financial Planning in 2026
For high-earning professionals, financial success often arrives faster than clarity. Income grows. Opportunities multiply. Decisions feel urgent. Yet as 2026 approaches, many individuals earning well into six or seven figures remain more financially fragile than they realize. The reason is not a lack of intelligence or effort. It is a misunderstanding of what long-term financial planning actually requires at the highest income levels.
The coming year brings a convergence of forces reshaping how wealth is built, preserved, and lost. Market volatility remains a given rather than an exception. Tax rules continue to evolve. Income streams are increasingly complex, global, and unpredictable. At the same time, lifestyle expectations rise quickly once money starts flowing. In this environment, traditional planning assumptions break down.
The professionals who navigate this period successfully are not necessarily those who earn the most. They are the ones who approach financial planning as a discipline rather than a reaction. They build systems that anticipate change, enforce restraint, and protect optionality. Much of this thinking reflects lessons drawn from decades of advising high earners across entertainment, sports, entrepreneurship, and professional services. Insights from Eric Fulton, Accountant and Business Manager illustrate how these principles work in practice.
High income is not the same as financial security
One of the most persistent myths among high earners is that income itself creates safety. In reality, higher income often introduces greater risk. Compensation becomes tied to volatile markets, project based work, equity events, or public visibility. Expenses scale up quickly. Commitments become harder to unwind.
Many professionals discover too late that their financial lives are built on assumptions that only hold during peak earning years. A few strong years create the illusion of permanence. Long-term planning, by contrast, begins with the recognition that income may fluctuate dramatically or disappear altogether.
The most resilient plans are designed around sustainability rather than optimization. Instead of asking how much can be spent this year, effective planners ask how today’s decisions perform across multiple economic cycles. That shift in framing changes everything from investment strategy to lifestyle design.
Cash flow discipline matters more than net worth
By 2026, cash flow management has become the core skill separating durable wealth from temporary success. High earners often focus on assets, valuations, and headline numbers while overlooking liquidity. This is a costly mistake.
Irregular income requires excess liquidity. Tax obligations arrive on fixed schedules regardless of earnings volatility. Opportunities often require capital at precisely the wrong moment. Without disciplined cash flow controls, even wealthy individuals are forced into reactive decisions.
Professionals who sustain wealth treat cash flow as a system. They separate operating money from long-term capital. They smooth income across years rather than months. They resist the urge to match spending to peak earnings. This approach creates breathing room during downturns and leverage during periods of opportunity.
Lifestyle inflation is the quietest threat
Few financial risks are as dangerous as gradual lifestyle expansion. It rarely feels reckless in the moment. Each decision seems reasonable. A better home. More travel. Additional staff. Over time, however, fixed costs harden around income levels that may not persist.
One of the most consistent pieces of guidance given by Eric Fulton, Business Manager to clients entering high-earning phases is simple: do not lock in a lifestyle until income has proven itself across time. Early success may be real, but it is often untested. Building flexibility first creates freedom later.
Professionals who delay lifestyle commitments gain optionality. They can take career risks, step back during burnout, or weather industry shifts without panic. Those who scale too quickly find themselves trapped by obligations they assumed would always be affordable.
Tax strategy must be proactive, not reactive
Tax planning in 2026 is no longer an annual exercise. For high earners, it is an ongoing strategic process that intersects with investment decisions, entity structures, geographic considerations, and timing of income recognition.
Reactive tax planning often results in missed opportunities and unnecessary exposure. Effective strategies require forecasting income well in advance and coordinating decisions across multiple domains. This is particularly true for professionals with income from multiple sources, international exposure, or digital platforms.
Experienced advisors emphasize that tax efficiency should never override sound economics. Aggressive strategies that look attractive on paper can introduce compliance risk, liquidity constraints, or reputational exposure. The goal is alignment, not avoidance.
Preparation beats prediction in volatile markets
Market volatility remains a defining feature of the current environment. Attempting to predict cycles has proven less effective than building plans that can withstand them. The professionals who emerge strongest from downturns are usually those who resisted excess during boom periods.
This means maintaining adequate liquidity even when returns are strong. It means diversifying in ways that reflect actual risk rather than theoretical models. It means avoiding over leverage when capital feels abundant.
According to Eric Fulton, Accountant, panic is optional when a plan is built correctly. Preparation creates emotional stability. Emotional stability prevents destructive decisions. Over decades, that discipline compounds more reliably than any single investment strategy.
Reputation risk is financial risk
For high-visibility professionals, your reputation and finances are inextricably linked. Many times, the way you become financially exposed to litigation, poorly structured contracts, or misaligned partnerships occurs before such items are made public. Therefore, when you make long-term decisions, you need to include the risk of those exposures.
In addition, it is necessary to slow down your decision-making process at times when emotions are running high. You should stress-test opportunities against your downside risk and make sure that all advisors are working on a basis of discretion and confidentiality. The foundation for developing a trusting relationship is built through consistent protection rather than through publicity.
In 2026, with the increase in public scrutiny being so high and when there is a misstep with a public figure, your financial repercussions will be much greater than they were previously. Financial plans that do not include the impact of reputation on a financial plan are not complete.
Consistency outweighs brilliance
The experts that maintain their wealth for many years have several things in common. They usually spend less than they earn—even when they afford to live more lavishly—and are careful when deciding whether or not to invest money. They often feel comfortable saying no.
Typically, long-term wealth is not achieved through remarkable insight. Instead, it is typically the result of applying common sense and good habits consistently over an extended period of time. In contrast to the prevailing mindset of most high-income earners (which emphasizes quick results), this way of thinking is among the greatest indicators of sustainable success.
Planning for life, not just money
To create the ultimate financial plan you need to have an eye on how you can help yourself achieve long-term financial goals by considering more than just how much you want to accumulate in your life; you must consider all the factors that will affect your financial well-being (career sustainability, personal values, family priorities, transition to your future). Creating a financial plan is about creating a tool that allows you to manage your money rather than just a way to keep score on how much money you have. Many advisors are beginning to recognize the need for their clients to think differently about their financial futures.
Success should not be measured by one’s wealth, but by how much freedom, stability and peace of mind one has. Financial success is a result of the methodical way in which you build wealth for yourself.
The biggest lesson I have learned in almost 20 years of helping high-income earners achieve their financial goals is that the way in which I help them make decisions is more important than how much money they earn. In a world that is constantly changing and becoming increasingly complex, the only true asset you can have is self-discipline.
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How package, logistics companies are bringing robots into warehouses
DHL Autonomous Robot at work.
Source: DHL
Workers at DHL Group used to walk close to a half marathon each day just to classify, pick and move items across massive warehouses.
Now, their distance and efforts are greatly reduced by autonomous mobile robots that can unload containers for the package delivery and supply chain management company with a speed of up to 650 cases per hour.
“That is what we look forward to, and where we’ve been successful in deploying technology at scale over the last five years, going from when we started in 2020 with 240 projects, and now we’re up to 10,000 projects,” Tim Tetzlaff, DHL’s global head of digital transformation, told CNBC.
The company’s autonomous innovations have accelerated processes at 95% of DHL’s global warehouses. Item-picking robots in one warehouse have increased units picked per hour by 30%, while autonomous forklifts at that same warehouse have contributed a 20% increase in efficiency, the company said.
Tetzlaff said automation is important for the company because it’s such a labor-intensive business.
“We still have the ambition to grow our business even further, but if you look at where these distribution centers should be located … it’s typically very tough to find additional labor or even additional spaces just to build these warehouses there,” he said.
DHL is one of multiple fulfillment companies moving toward automation and leveraging artificial intelligence as the industry works toward greater efficiency.
On an earnings call with analysts in late January, United Parcel Service CEO Carol Tomé said the company deployed automation in 57 buildings in the fourth quarter, bringing its total to 127 automated buildings, with plans for 24 more in 2026.
“This year, we plan to further automate our network and as a result, we expect to increase the percentage of U.S. volume we process through automated facilities to 68% by the end of the year, up from 66.5% at the end of 2025,” she said.
Similarly, FedEx has said it sees automation as an opportunity to enhance its workers’ jobs, installing robotic arms to help process small packages at its Memphis hub and working with AI company Dexterity to leverage robots for loading boxes into containers. Its “Network 2.0” initiative is working to increase the efficiency of its package processes.
The company recently announced a partnership with Berkshire Grey to launch a fully autonomous robot to unload containers and optimize operations.
It estimates that the global warehouse automation market is expected to exceed $51 billion by 2030.
“We now have about 24% of our eligible average daily volume flowing through 355 Network 2.0-optimized facilities,” CEO Raj Subramaniam said on a call with analysts in December.
A human fleet
A worker unloads packages from a FedEx truck in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
With the rise of automation, companies are weighing the balance between their human workers and their technological innovations.
UPS has announced layoffs north of 75,000 over the past year as the company focuses on efficiency and cuts down its partnership with Amazon amid a multiyear turnaround plan.
The company also said it closed 93 buildings in 2025 and plans to shutter at least 24 buildings in the first half of 2026.
“What’s happening is you’re seeing a cascading effect of sites being closed that are legacy conventional facilities, a lot of labor required to run those facilities, to a much more nimble, quicker, automated, consolidated facility,” Executive Vice President Nando Cesarone said on the January call.
In a statement to CNBC, a UPS spokesperson said the company is focused on making jobs easier for its employees and that the AI and robotics take on repetitive tasks that “make us more efficient in other functions.”
FedEx did not respond to requests for comment on how the company is balancing its workforce and technology. Subramaniam said on the most recent earnings call that the Network 2.0 initiative has resulted in “structural cost reductions” but the company has not publicly disclosed job cut amounts.
Teamsters, the union representing workers from many of the major packaging companies, said it will remain focused on ensuring its team members have a voice at the table when it comes to technology.
“We never want to get in the way of technology and its development, but all of that, it must support workers, and it cannot work against them ever,” spokesperson Lena Melentijevic told CNBC. “It’s the workers who are the backbone of each one of these companies and who are essential to their success, and we are here to advocate for them and hold companies accountable.”
DHL’s Tetzlaff said the company wants its automation to complement human labor instead of replacing it altogether. Regardless of how much DHL’s technology improves, Tetzlaff said the dexterous tasks of packaging and shipping remain in the hands of the employees.
“In the time where we deployed 8,000 collaborative robotics into our operation worldwide, we still hired 40,000 people,” he said.
The biggest area where DHL has deployed its robotics is in item picking, with more than 2,500 robots using trained arms to select items for packages. This past holiday season, to keep up with the Black Friday and Christmas demand, the company added 30% capacity to its robotic fleet.
“There’s an advantage for us as a company, having a great human fleet of workers that is motivated and likes the job, but complementing this with a robotic fleet that we can scale up and down and have that flexible stability to deal with change, the peaks throughout the year, be it bigger changes like Covid, be it [customer] profile changes and so on,” he said.
The path forward for investment
DHL Autonomous Forklift at work.
Source: DHL
Still, it’s unlikely there will be a near future in which warehouses are full of humanoid robots, according to supply chain expert and Accenture logistics and fulfillment lead Benjamin Reich.
Humanoid robots have been gaining intense popularity as tech companies innovate human-like machines, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang saying he believes the innovation is fast moving. At the January CES trade show, Google announced a partnership with Boston Dynamics, the same company working with DHL, to augment the tech company’s new robot named Atlas.
But Reich said among his clients, he’s seeing that “humans are still in the lead.”
“We are also not seeing a replacement of jobs, but a shifting that you’re more looking for skill sets on the market to serve the gap between degree of automation, operational tasks as well as organizational,” Reich told CNBC.
The automation is angled toward specific jobs, he added, with robots taking over repetitive tasks and companies instead “redirecting” their hiring toward technical roles instead of eliminating job growth altogether.
Reich said the industry is seeing rising investments into automation, with the biggest gains coming not from replacing people, but through increasing the efficiency of the supply chain and warehouse execution processes.
There are also factors in the broader industry that are impacting the workforce, according to Ronny Horvath, the transportation and logistics lead at Accenture. There’s a shortage of skilled workers who have both the manual skills and the organizational skills needed for the sector, and there’s also competition among companies for warehouse personnel based on pay, benefits, lifestyle and more.
“So automation can also help, not replacing but augmenting that gap, that void, that has been left by just not getting the workers that you have today,” Horvath said. “And we see a lot of clients, they have an automation or robotic strategy … but they still have the plans to hire human workers as well.”
Horvath added that the industry is reaping the rewards of its new technology. He’s seen companies able to adjust to deliver on high demand, increase efficiency and work toward more automated processes to keep up with warehousing.
According to an Accenture study from March, 51% of factories globally expect to have fully automated warehouses by 2040, and 70% of transportation logistics executives treat autonomous supply chains as a top investment priority.
“There’s almost no autonomous structure existing at the moment,” Horvath said. “So most or some of these clients are starting from scratch, and this will take time until these investments are done and until they also reap the benefits out of it for all those areas.”
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