Whether you are a person owning assets or an owner of a Company or a business, succession planing is of paramount importance as asset protection tools and establishment of the appropriate procedures and legal framework will be working on your behalf irrespective of unfortunate unforeseen incidents occur at personal, family or corporate level.

Succession planning in a nutshell is the establishment of vehicles or the legal proceedings so that your wishes are followed once specific incidents or events take place. For instance upon retirement you may decide that the shares of your company will be acquired based on a specific method or by a specific person. Similarly, you may not want to pass over all your assets to your beloved ones to protect them again this can be achieved using the appropriate vehicles, in this case discretionary trust.

Since these matters attract a fair amount of taxation to all stakeholders, careful planning must be executed well in advance to minimise such exposures.

Why you may need such planning:

• Family reasons (you may not want the shares to sold to third parties or the opposite)
• Health reasons
• Asset protection (ownership)
• Asset distribution (usage of your wealth)
• Simple planning for the future
• Selling your business
• Keeping your business without your involvement

We set below the most commonly used tools for succession planning:

• Establishment of Companies for asset protection purposes
• Establishment of Companies for cheaper and quicker disposal process
• Establishment of International Discretionary Trusts for asset protection, running and maintenance of the assets
• We take advantage of the current tax allowances, for instance at present the transfer fees are reduced to 50% for immovable    property change of ownership
• We create a tax group if assets are involved in various countries, gathering the dividends or proceeds in the most advantages manner for the beneficiary based on the succession instructions