Still Pond Capital still pays duPont family a dividend tied to DuPont, GM history

Still Pond Capital still pays its branch of the duPont family a quarterly dividend, even though the family no longer owns DuPont Co. or General Motors shares outside an index fund. Jamie Biddle, the office's chief executive and an eighth-generation family member, told FO Pro that the payout traces to the family's history as an owner of both public companies, which distributed quarterly dividends.

The dividend flows primarily to the oldest living generation and is based on the value of the family's assets, Biddle said. That design ties older members' income to portfolio values, the volatility they say they want to avoid. "It's hard to manage your life when you don't know what your income is going to be," he said.

The two ends of the family want different things from the same pool. Beneficiaries of the distribution "want stability in that payment stream," Biddle said, while younger members who are not yet beneficiaries "are going to want compounding," to make sure something is left when their turn comes.

Biddle frames risk appetite as a question of time remaining. Younger members "are much more comfortable with risk, because they have time to work their way out of problems," he said. Someone aged 85 facing a 50% market decline, as in the global financial crisis, may not have the 16 years it took then to return to breakeven.

There is no perfect answer, Biddle said, because the two objectives are at odds: "You need volatility to drive growth." Per FO Pro's account, the family works through the conflict with clear goals, outside facilitation and full transparency.

Still Pond Capital leaders appeared at the ALIGN 2026 conference in Dallas, where governance and legacy-asset sales were on the agenda, per FO Pro's account.