Succession, Assets and Foundations
Shape a generational shift in optimal fashion, and position the company for the future.
Building and expanding a company is a life’s work. Therefore, topics such as business succession and asset protection are particularly sensitive. The generational change in both family businesses and large estates is thus a highly complex process comprising many opportunities and risks. The way in which it is planned and implemented determines the future of the business and the financial security of the family.
Our team of approximately 20 lawyers provides independent legal advice to help you secure (and increase) your personal wealth over generations.
We advise:
- Wealthy individuals and families
- Single Family Offices
- Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial families
- Shareholders of large family businesses
- Top senior executives (board members, supervisory board members, top managers)
- Artists and top athletes
- Family foundations and charitable foundations
Asset and Company Succession
Transferring one’s own business or the assets accrued over time is something very personal – after all, it is about securing the future of the business or the prosperity of the family for generations to come. We help you to prepare a smooth transition to your successor. There is no standard solution for all this. That is why PwC has developed a multidisciplinary advisory approach that takes your specific needs into account.
This is how PwC Legal supports you
Our lawyers advise you on:
- Lifetime succession planning, gifts – including tax law issues (by PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft)
- Drafts of dispositions of property upon death
- Marriage contracts under domestic and foreign law
- Calculation and enforcement (or defence) of the compulsory share of inheritance
- Preparation of (precautionary) powers of attorney and living wills
- Establishment of family companies
- Relocation issues – including tax optimisation (by PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft)
- Aspects of company law on partnership agreements and family constitutions
- Assumption of executorships
- Regulation of the legal representation for minors
- Real estate investments at home & abroad
- Declaration obligations within the scope of business participation
- Tax optimisation of private and business assets (by PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft)
Tax advice is provided through PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft – often by the same professional experts.
Holding (and increasing) private wealth is a challenge, especially because of the increasing internationalisation of wealth. Here you can access PwC’s global network.
Strategic wealth structuring advice: PwC also provides forward-looking and balanced tax strategy advice to high net worth individuals and entrepreneurs. Find out more about the topic here.
Charitable Foundations and Family Foundations
Establishing a foundation can be of interest in the context of succession planning. The foundation concepts, as well as the purposes pursued with them, can be diverse. Our offer: together with you, we develop an individual and sustainable concept for the implementation of the planned foundation, the legal structure and the financial resources. Of course, we also support you in reconciliation efforts with the tax authorities, and administer your foundation after it has started its work.
This is how PwC Legal supports you
Our lawyers advise you on:
- The optimal legal form of the foundation
- The search for the appropriate federal state law for the foundation’s seat
- The tax-optimised structuring of the foundation’s establishment, and advice on the drafting of deeds of establishment
- The recognition procedure by representation vis-a-vis the competent foundation supervisory authority and the financial administration
- Tax-related and legal compliance of the foundation and representation vis-a-vis tax offices, supervisory authorities and fiscal courts
- The restructuring of foundations
Family Offices
The establishment of family offices requires a clear concept and comprehensive strategic planning.
Owners of large assets – private individuals and (business) families alike – face considerable challenges as a result of a changing geopolitical situation. It is important to structure the assets in an optimal way, and to put this structure to the test, time and again. The establishment of a family office can be the key to success here. With a family office, you maintain a clear overview – of financial, legal and tax matters. Entrepreneurial, as well as family interests, are optimally managed on a permanent basis.
This is how PwC Legal supports you
Our lawyers provide support with:
- The development of the right family office structure (strategy, identification of needs and legal and actual implementation)
- Answering legal questions from (entrepreneurial) families or private individuals without a family office structure
- Questions regarding family offices integrated in the company, single family offices, as well as multi-family offices