TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS

Trusts and foundations are globally accepted as an international solution to the effective, long term holding of assets of all kinds for succession planning and estate purposes. Our highly respected global team builds a bespoke service for every client, private or institutional, which may include:

• Establishment of a variety of trust and foundation types, using the structure and jurisdiction most appropriate to your needs, without restriction on the asset classes held.
• Complex, multi-jurisdictional structuring for international institutions and families, with expertise covering both common law and civil law jurisdictions.
• Assistance in the drafting of trust deeds and other key documentation, liaising with specialised legal counsel as required.
• Provision of corporate trustees, bespoke trustees, council members and other key roles for your structure, ensuring assets are overseen by highly qualified professionals.
• Ongoing administration of the structure, including bespoke accounting and reporting and the coordination of banking and investment relationships.
• Provision of and assistance in the drafting of trust deeds and other key documentation, liaising with specialised legal counsel as required.
• Independent verification and review of trust accounts, where we are not the trustee.
• Establishment of private trust companies (PTCs), allowing an additional layer of control over the use of assets.
• Provision of managed trust companies (MTCs), operated on a white label basis, allowing institutions to provide trusted fiduciary services to their client base as a new revenue stream.
• Carefully managed transfer out of trust structures for trust service providers, including private banks, that have changed their appetite for internal trust work.
• Escrow services for major purchases and sales.

For private clients wishing to organise, optimise, and protect assets across generations, a bespoke trust is the definitive, most effective and robust solution. Trusts provide greater confidentiality and tax advantages than personal ownership, together with the flexibility to safely accommodate all types of asset - trading entities, complex investments and prized assets such as art, yachts and aircraft.

We provide:

• Multi-generational estate and succession planning and broader family wealth structuring using bespoke wealth and asset protection strategies.
• Effective structures for managing liability and confidentiality for luxury assets such as yachts and aircraft.
• Advice on the effective structuring of large-scale philanthropic activity.
• The establishment of private trust companies (PTCs) to hold the trusts. This can be useful when holding assets that are perceived to be higher risk, such as trading companies or highly speculative or illiquid assets. They are also commonly used so that key family members and/or professional advisers can be appointed to the board of the PTC, thereby securing greater control and influence over the assets even while robust asset protection is maintained.

We are highly experienced in providing trust structures to institutional and corporate clients for a variety of purposes, including:

• Complex capital market transactions, such as pre-IPO structuring of international corporations that accounts for both business needs and those of owners facing a major liquidity event.
• Trusteeship for complex securitisation or off-balance sheet transactions.
• Project and structured finance.
• Employee share incentive or benefit schemes.