Tax, in particular, has become a much more important issue for Africa’s high net worth individuals and families in recent years, particularly those with international assets and activities.

Legal matters are also important. Our clients will have access to multi-jurisdictional lawyers and international tax experts, to provide the following services:

We help families preserve business relationships in the family enterprise while maintaining healthy non-business relationships. These services include:

• Family governance framework setup and implementation.
• Family council meetings
• Family Assembly meetings and retreats

Much of this revolves around the education of the next generation on issues including wealth management and financial literacy, as well as wider economic matters. These services include:

• Organizing family meetings.
• Ensuring family education commitments.
• Coordination of generational education with outside advisers.

Administrative services or back-office services are essential to the smooth running of our clients’ wealth management activities. These services include:

• Support on general legal issues.
• Opening bank accounts.
• Bank statement reconciliation.
• Referrals and management of legal and accountancy firms.
• Bills Payment and arranging tax compliance.

Having worked with other family offices, we understand that every client is different and can sometimes have complex family dynamics.

We work closely with family office teams, as well as relevant advisers, to ensure we fully understand the client’s requirements and implement the most suitable structure for them.

We provide specialist support services to family offices and create and administer a range of wealth planning vehicles across a variety of jurisdictions.

We have considerable experience in asset protection through managed trusts, succession and estate planning protection. We specialise in establishing and administering trusts, companies, foundations and partnerships.

As an independent firm we are ideally placed to work in conjunction with our clients’ advisers and family office teams. Our worldwide reach allows us to cater for any multijurisdictional requirements and provide truly global solutions.

The maintenance of records is another core element of our services. Key to these services are:

• Consolidating and performance reporting all family assets
• Quarterly investment performance reporting
• Lifestyle management & Budgeting
• Tax preparation and reporting

We understand that having worked hard to accumulate their wealth, our clients want to protect it and ensure it is maintained and passed to future generations in the most efficient manner.

We provide business succession and estate planning solutions like managed trusts, enabling the transfer of wealth to the next generation. These services include:

• Wealth protection, transfer analysis, and planning related to the management of all types of assets and income sources.
• Customized services for estate settlement and administration.
• Professional guidance on family governance.
• Professional guidance regarding wealth transfer to succeeding generations.

While many professional organisations such as banks, accountancy firms, law practices and trust companies consider creating their own trust company in another jurisdiction, many conclude that the expense involved is prohibitive.

A popular alternative to establishing a new stand-alone office – which can also be time consuming – is to create a managed trust company. This offers the benefits of having your own branded trust company, with minimised costs.

Our team establishes and administers vehicles commonly used for estate planning including trusts, foundations, companies and partnerships. We work with our clients’ advisers to implement structures tailored to their individual requirements.

Because we are independent and do not provide tax or legal advice, we are ideally placed to administer and support a managed trust company arrangement.

For a managed trust company, we can provide:

• Directors
• Registered office
• Registered agent / company secretary
• Compliance support
• Accountancy and administration services

A director, supported by an experienced team, will be responsible for the management of the structure on a day-to-day basis.

We have a significant number of clients whose philanthropic endeavours are a priority in their financial objectives. We work with our clients and their advisers to create a structure which can support the donor in achieving the vision for his/her philanthropic initiatives.

Donors may use an existing trust or may want to establish their own charitable trust or foundation. However donors choose to give we can assist with the donation and investment strategy, including managing the fund and creating a tailored charitable giving plan. In this scenario, the donor may have considerable input through the expression of his wishes to the trustee or as the guardian to the council of the foundation, or trust protector.

Considerations include:

• The time horizon of projects or endowments
• Whether to create a perpetual endowment or to pay away capital and interest over a specific period
• Whether to invest surplus funds or to generate an income with capital assets

The donor can stipulate any ethical boundaries on investment and remain involved in investment decisions. We ensure that our clients receive timely and relevant information so that they can evaluate the impact of their endowments and consider whether further funding of any given initiative is continued.

We recognize the need to play a role in managing our clients’ philanthropic efforts. This might include the establishment and management of a foundation, and advice on donating to charitable causes. These services would typically involve:

• Philanthropic planning.
• Assistance with the establishment and administration of charitable institutions.
• Guidance in planning a donation strategy.
• Advice on the technical and operational management of charities.
• Formation of grant-making foundations and trusts.
• Organizing charitable activities and related due diligence.

These services include:

• Public relations referral and management of public relations firms.
• Review of social media policy and the development of a reputation management strategy.
• Media engagement.