Private client
For private clients, succession planning, wealth management and asset protection are of key importance. From protecting business and personal wealth, to growing and consolidating your business, or preparing for your personal and commercial needs in the future, McCullough Robertson’s Private Client team can help.
Our dedicated Private Client team offers tailored solutions to help individuals, families, and private businesses of all sizes. From start-ups to generational business and enterprise, our team provides clients with the advice they need to make informed decisions.
Our advice is tailored and precise – we identify options and risks as well as benefits in order to maximise every opportunity and prepare for the next challenge. We don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach, and will work with you to provide flexible, tailored solutions that suit your risk appetite. Our focus is on delivering certainty and personal service.
The team can assist with family office advice, succession and tax planning for business, advice in relation to trusts (including establishment, advising trustees with respect to administration of trusts and their obligations, interpretation and trust disputes), estate planning and administration, superannuation, charitable and philanthropic foundation establishment and management, and dispute resolution.
Our Private Client practice is supported by McCullough Robertson’s integrated full-service offering, bringing together expertise across commercial transactions, business compliance including competition and consumer law, property services, intellectual property, employment, workplace health and safety and planning laws, and dispute resolution. Our strong international connections allow us to provide comprehensive advice to clients with assets located overseas.
To find out more, contact David Hughes, Scott Whitla, or Phillip McGowan.
Experience
Case Study 1
The Private Client team assisted a high net worth individual to separate a portion of his wealth from his riskier business ventures into a separate entity, which would see his wealth preserved to ensure the security of future generations of his family – particularly his grandchildren.
The transactions giving effect to the transfer of wealth took approximately 18 months of cooperation with the ATO, and the structure itself went through many iterations and discussions with the client to ensure it met his needs for succession of control and restrictions on investment (his primary objective being for those assets to be invested low-risk to ensure their protection).
As part of the restructure, the Private Client team developed an “advisory board” – a structure contemplated by the client to assist future generations to receive appropriate and considered advice from a board of professionals on a regular, structured basis. Members of the Private Client team currently serve on the board to provide guidance to the client and his family members on the administration (and eventual succession) of the new asset holding structure.
Case Study 2
The Private Client team assisted a high net worth individual with succession planning for her valuable property development group. The client’s objectives were to treat her children equally from the assets she owned or controlled, while allowing her children to go their separate ways to explore their own business and investment opportunities.
The Private Client team was tasked with finding a way to divide the client’s entities equally between her children (having regard to dormant CGT and other related expenses), as well as navigating complex financing and inter entity loan arrangements to achieve the necessary outcome. Ultimately, the client’s succession objectives were achieved through the drafting of her will, deeds varying existing entities to enable appropriate succession of control, some inter vivos asset restructuring, and a Family Constitution which allowed the client to encourage the involvement of the children in the group and the succession plan.
The Private Client team also assisted by facilitating family meetings which fostered open communication with the client’s children about their expectations and our client’s intentions for the succession of her business.