Other services
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Family Offices
As a family office, we advise on a wide range of legal matters of high-net worth individuals or families. Our trusted global network in over 200 jurisdictions means we can support international family offices anywhere in the world.
Managing, protecting and passing on wealth through family offices
We have a full range of personal and corporate lawyers, charitable giving, wealth succession planning and tax services.
The number of family offices has grown significantly in recent years. There are now an estimated 12,000 - 15,000 offices worldwide with assets of nearly US$6 trillion. We understand the dynamics of legal and personal issues that affect families and family offices when managing, protecting and passing on their wealth. We act for both single and multi-family offices located in key jurisdictions around the world, including:
- London
- The US
- UAE
- Monaco
- Switzerland
- Singapore
- The Channel Islands
The world is experiencing a turbulent period, with significant shifts in technology, geopolitics, the environment and civil society, coupled with the risk of a recession. As a result, many family offices are re-examining the jurisdictions and structures through which they operate, as well as their corporate and family governance and taking steps to future-proof for the next generation. They need expert legal advice to ensure that their family office are compliant, commercial and risk-managed.
Our dynamic and diverse team of family office lawyers and tax experts work together to offer integrated advice and support on a variety of issues including:
- The creation of family offices
- Tax advice in respect of individuals (including non-doms), corporates and trusts onshore and offshore
- Investment - acquisitions and structuring, and private equity
- Cross-border transactions (including project management of multi-jurisdictional matters)
- Succession planning
- Family, matrimonial, divorce and child issues
- Legal disputes
- Integrating philanthropy into family offices, through co-ordinated and structured corporate governance, and associated social impact investing
Our clients benefit from our responsive and efficient project management of large multi-jurisdictional transactions. We’re proudly independent and only work with the best professionals in each jurisdiction, enabling us to provide coordinated advice and support so that our clients can focus on what is most important to them. With a discreet but comprehensive book of contacts, we are able to connect our family office clients to our substantial and diverse client, professional adviser and community eco-system.
Working With Us
We’ll help you protect your family office from commercial and personal risk and plan for the safe passing of your wealth to future generations. Our expertise and recent experience includes helping clients with:
- Establishing new family offices - including identifying suitable jurisdictions in which to base them and structuring their ownership for privacy and tax-efficiency
- Working closely with the management team of existing family offices - including advising on day-to-day issues such as commercial contracts and employment matters.
- Corporate matters - including designing and setting up corporate holding structures, undertaking due diligence, restructuring, acquisitions and investments. Advising on and project managing complex, multi-jurisdictional transactions.
- Succession planning - including reviewing existing structures, creating new complex trusts and foundations for asset protection and wealth preservation and preparing Sharia-compliant UK wills.
- Coordination of investment funds, investment of assets and private equity – including undertaking comprehensive due diligence on the target entity, drafting and negotiating the transaction documentation and providing on-going advice and support.
- Complex UK and cross-border tax advice – including advice on relocation of family members to different jurisdictions and the effect on asset-holding structures, taxation of trusts and foundations and tax-efficient investment in UK real estate.
- Regulatory and tax compliance – including annual UK income tax returns, IHT returns, ATED returns, and HMRC disclosures.
- Changes to the family - including prenuptial agreements and divorce
- UK immigration and British citizenship – for EU and non-EU citizens
- Incentivising family office staff to assist with retention - including EMI options schemes and bonus schemes
- Acquisition, financing and ownership structures for commercial and residential property
- Establishing charities and other philanthropic structures
- Resolving commercial and personal legal disputes.
Recent work for our family office clients
The family that this office operates for are beneficial owners of significant assets in multiple jurisdictions. These include the UAE, the USA, UK, Bermuda, France, Egypt, and Malaysia. The family’s tax planning and legal needs are similarly complex and multi-jurisdictional. We’ve advised the office and family members on:
- Relocation to the UK and the UK tax implications of becoming tax resident
- Pre-arrival clean capital planning for UK tax purposes, to meet UK funding requirements
- Complex succession and estate planning
- Corporate residence of various entities owned by the family private trust company structure, following a key family member’s relocation to the UK
- Ongoing participation in the family office after becoming a UK resident
- Employment vs. self-employment status
- UK immigration considerations (including obtaining pre-settled status)
- A UK residential property dispute involving the eviction of tenants
- Review of trust structure and master trust deed
- Sharia-compliant Will drafting and execution in the UK
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