Family Office
Our Family Office is at the heart of our service offering. It is designed to cover everything you would want from your own family office and a lot more. Family office can offer a hub of knowledge, experience and operational capability, which can support the requirements of the family across the whole range of their affairs, from long-term planning to routine transactions and administration.
A specific structure for every family
The service is individually designed around the requirements and preferences of your family. Whilst no two families are alike, the family’s history, size and location, the nature of the principal assets and the aptitudes of senior family members will all be key factors in defining your requirements.
All families have one thing in common: the need to plan the practicalities of passing the baton from one generation to the next and laying the foundations for an enduring legacy. This, perhaps above all, is the common theme which helps define our approach.
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Investment Management
Drawing on extensive resources and expertise, we invest on a discretionary or advisory basis across the full range of asset classes. We always adapt our investment approach to the wider circumstances of the family.
Global perspective, individual needs
No two family clients have identical investment needs. Many ask us to manage their entire portfolio; others wish to provide greater input to the process and to have a high degree of interaction with our team. We regularly work with investors who draw upon their own expertise in specific sectors.
Some of our clients are in the first generation of family wealth; others have many members across multiple generations, where succession and governance can be key investment issues.
Some families who employ a variety of investment managers, use us as their gatekeeper to oversee investment strategy, research, administration and reporting.
In all cases, our clients can draw on a global investment perspective, knowing that our teams in London, Zurich, South Africa and Jersey will address the nuances of local markets and cross-border tax requirements.
Building portfolios requires sophisticated analysis and monitoring, but we seek to deliver our service with simplicity and transparency. Our reports tell you what we have done and why, and the investment performance we have generated, at an agreed frequency. We will coordinate fully with your other advisers inside and outside Stonehage Fleming and we believe our charges are clear and fair.
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Succession & Governance
Supporting client families in succession planning and family governance is core to our service offering. It is an integral part of almost everything we do and is a crucial consideration in major decisions.
Family legacy for future generations
Indeed it is well known that inherited wealth can sometimes have a detrimental impact on the lives of individuals and families, if the succession is not managed appropriately.
That is why helping you pass on an enduring financial and family legacy to future generations is probably the most defining feature of our approach to intergenerational wealth management.
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Expert Fiduciary
A full range of cross-jurisdictional fiduciary services including trusteeship, directorship, company secretarial, administration, nominee services and executorships. Our extensive commercial experience equips us to handle an exceptionally wide range of assets.
Realising your vision for succession
We have both the technical expertise and the commercial experience to hold an exceptionally wide variety of assets, including private companies, business ventures, property, art collections, aircraft and marine vessels, as well as diversified investment portfolios.
Trusts are frequently an integral part of intergenerational succession planning and as trustees we support families in passing on their legacy.
We have highly qualified trust officers, lawyers and accountants making up our two principal fiduciary teams in Jersey and Switzerland. They are proficient in the establishment and administration of structures incorporating entities from a wide range of international financial centres.
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Wealth Planning
The UK Wealth Advisory business of Stonehage Fleming, working with aspiring and wealthy clients to develop and implement strategies to protect and manage their wealth.
Strategists and technicians in one
What differentiates us is our strategic approach. We devote time and energy to really understanding your objectives as experience has shown how important this is.
A wealth strategy sets out your objectives – what you are really trying to achieve for yourself, for your family and for others. This provides the strong foundation for all the advice we give.
Our clients include those who consider their affairs to be straightforward as well as those with the most complex needs. The breadth and depth of our technical expertise allows us to advise UK residents, domiciled and non-domiciled, as well as arrivers and levers in support of UK-based assets.
We are authorised in the UK to provide regulated advice across investments, pensions and insurance.
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Legal & Tax Advisory
Stonehage Fleming Law brings exceptional experience to wealthy international families, providing advice on long-term tax planning and structuring solutions, as well as ensuring day-to-day transactions are properly scrutinised for their tax and regulatory implications.
Multi-dimensional real-world experience
Because we have supported international families for over forty years, we understand the complicated legal issues our entrepreneurial family clients face every day: multi-dimensional estate planning, trusts, confusing cross-border tax regimes, and conflicting family opinion obstructing the need for decisive and rapid decision-making.
That is why our tax and legal advisers always offer advice that is, first and foremost, pragmatic and commercial, to deliver the essential outcomes you are striving for.
When necessary, we will source counsel from our international network of external advisers. However, we will never delegate responsibility for finding the right solutions.
We understand that the actions you take following our recommendations must operate effectively not only at inception but also for years down the line. We ensure our counsel is always simple to understand and communicate. We believe that wherever there is unnecessary complexity, risk may be around the corner.
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Corporate Finance
Our expert advisers provide independent corporate finance advice to shareholders and companies at every stage of the corporate lifecycle – from acquisitions and capital raising, through to disposals and liquidity events.
Trusted advice – entrepreneurial thinking
Our highly experienced team provides independent corporate finance advice to shareholders and companies at every stage of the corporate lifecycle, from acquisitions and capital-raising through to disposals and liquidity events.
The team also advises clients on their direct investments and will introduce, structure, and monitor direct investments into private companies on their behalf.
Find out moreDirect Investments
Our Direct Investments team works with clients on their directly held private equity investments from initial introductions and structuring, through due diligence to completion of the investment, thereafter monitoring the investments through to exit.
Why Direct Investments?
Private market investments are now an important part of our conversations with clients. Some clients undertake direct investments to retain autonomy and control over where and how their money is invested; this can be particularly relevant for investors focused on specific sectors or themes, such as impact investments. For others it is about putting their investment returns in a low return environment, accepting this means reduced liquidity and requires patience and a longer-term investment horizon. Our clients are able to project their social and intellectual capital through direct investments and this can also be a good way to engage the next generation in the management of the family's wealth.
For all of these reasons clients are working with us to gain direct exposure to private investments as part of their overall wealth management strategy. Since 2002 Stonehage Fleming has invested USD380m in 22 direct investments, and USD1.4bn in the private equity asset class as a whole.
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Corporate Services
A bespoke service designed to help clients navigate the world’s increasingly complicated legal and regulatory environment in order to create innovative and effective corporate structures.
Your guide through a complex regulatory landscape
The opportunities for efficiently structuring the assets and cash flows of international businesses and investors are significant. Clients face an extensive choice of domicile and formation options to suit their structuring and tax-planning needs, and ensure they meet their objectives for whatever type of financial transaction or asset protection required.
These options range from funds and complex structured products to those vehicles catering for more traditional and conventional corporate activity including investment and property holding, financing and employee benefit schemes.
As the regulatory environment becomes ever more complex, many clients turn to us to guide them through the legislative minefield, and to assist them at every stage of the process – from designing innovative, customised corporate structures to sourcing experienced teams capable of managing every aspect of their day-to-day operations.
Find out moreArt Management
Our Art Management team, supported by a global network of experts, provides a comprehensive service including cataloguing and insurance, coordination of purchases and sales, exhibition loans, logistics, governance and legal oversight and strategic planning.
Strategy and logistics for passionate collectors
We provide comprehensive services to private art collectors, foundations and trusts. Our value lies in combining in-house expertise with a trusted global network of specialists. We have an independent position and our approach considers the life of a collection, from acquisitions to ownership to dispersal. Our hands-on approach gives us a thorough understanding of our clients’ collections: we know the size, weight and condition of each piece, which enables us to provide informed and accurate advice.
It is paramount to be aware of the potential pitfalls of the art market. Our knowledge and tested experience in the field greatly reduces risk and provides peace of mind to clients and trustees alike.
Dealing & Treasury
A comprehensive service to handle all the family’s banking and investment administration, including cash management, deal execution and custody. Our system enables us to spread banking counterparty risks across a number of prime institutions.
Spreading the risk
The banking crisis has highlighted the continuing risks of bank failure. Breaches of bank confidentiality have become too frequent to ignore. Compliance and regulatory pressures have substantially increased the costs of maintaining multiple banking relationships.
Our Dealing & Treasury service specifically addresses these concerns by aggregating client monies and spreading them across a number of carefully selected global banks.
All of which are monitored for security, price and performance on an ongoing basis.
Your funds are held by the banks as client assets in the name of SDS Nominees Limited and are completely ring-fenced from the Stonehage Fleming balance sheet.
This gives you a single point of contact for your banking and investment requirements.
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Insurance Services
Our insurance services form part of a wider risk management strategy, covering the whole spectrum of family circumstances. We are not an insurance broker and this independence means we can source the most appropriate cover for our clients.
Independent and impartial
Stonehage Fleming Insurance Services facilitates access to the specialist London insurance market and to other insurance providers who offer customised protection for wealthy private clients, trusts, funds and corporate entities.
This independence means we can source the most appropriate cover impartially and cost-effectively for you. Where possible, we will bring your policies together into a single portfolio with a common renewal date, thereby creating time efficiencies and premium saving opportunities.
Find out morePhilanthropy
We advise families on their approach for philanthropy, usually as an integral part of the wider family strategy. We also provide technical advice, structures, investment services and full operational support where required.
Our approach
We believe in a more strategic approach to philanthropy, one that meets your short or medium-term philanthropic objectives but also formally integrates philanthropy with succession planning and takes account of long-held family values.
This means ensuring the next generation is actively involved with the family’s philanthropy decision making, working together with other family members to embrace their values fully and moving forward harmoniously in pursuit of worthwhile causes.
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Private Equity
Using our network of contacts and partners we access attractive private equity opportunities both through funds and direct investments. Our offering is global and flexible and can be fully tailored to a client’s specific requirements.
Portfolios of private equity funds
The Private Investment Funds team focuses on helping you build concentrated portfolios of best-in-class private equity funds globally. The service is complementary to our direct private equity fund since its principal focus is on international managers, whereas the direct private equity fund is focused on UK headquartered companies.
The team’s strategy is to identify the most attractive and highest-returning market segments within the asset class, and to access and select the top-performing managers within each niche. We aim to provide you with returns that will achieve a meaningful premium to listed equity markets. Importantly, our services provide a high level of transparency plus state-of-the-art reporting.
Find out moreExpert Reporting
We provide comprehensive online reporting across a client’s entire asset base. Intelligence and technology combine to provide the insight and visibility needed to make effective decisions about family wealth.
The detail you demand
Our system allows your whole family or any subgroup or individual decision-makers to access consolidated reporting for everything from strategic overviews to fine-detail analyses.
If you are using the Stonehage Fleming Dealing & Treasury platform or our core banks, data accumulation is automatic. You get up-to-date reporting on all your assets whether they are financial or non-financial.
The reports include liabilities to add another dimension to your planning capability.
We can work with you and your investment advisers to identify benchmarks or other performance criteria and implement monitoring across any asset class and for any asset or portfolio. Standard benchmarks or appropriate composites can be applied wherever required.
Find out moreProperty Advisory
We offer a private property search service within our network of trusted advisers.
Expert advice coupled with an extensive network
We have a strong relationship with leading property firms and specialists as well as a broad network of other contacts and experts within the industry.
Using our extensive experience, our local market knowledge and leveraging our broad network, we are often able to assist our clients with identifying properties which best suits their bespoke requirements and assist with negotiating the best possible outcome.