Our Private Wealth and Entrepreneurial team works with individuals, their families, their businesses, investments and related entities at different stages of wealth creation.  The team has a particular focus on wealth structuring, with experience and expertise in tackling complex issues such as how to hold investments, the control of assets and succession planning, through to coordinating and processing personal tax returns.

We work for business owners, investors and stakeholders, private equity and other funds, trustees and directors, including directors of family vehicles, FCA registered advisers and executives.  With every individual or family having different requirements we provide tailored tax solutions to match the objectives of our clients, helping them to protect and maximise their wealth. We also work actively with advisers to private clients, working with trust companies, family offices, private banks, lawyers and existing accountants to offer an integrated approach to tax planning.

BDO plays a leading role in the private equity sector, advising investors, executives and management teams on private equity funds and transactions relating to PE backed companies.  We work to ensure we fully understand the commercial aims at a fund level as well as personal and family objectives.  We have a significant experience of advising private equity investors, executives and funds, whose affairs are complex, multi-jurisdictional and often involve trusts (both in the UK and offshore), and will deliver bespoke advice.

The wider services of the Private Wealth and Entrepreneurial team include 

• Capital gains planning, optimising tax rates and reliefs
• Extraction of cash, shareholder exit strategies and investment structuring
• Succession planning and wealth preservation, including family entities such as trusts, partnerships and companies
• Tax efficient structuring of business ventures and funds – identifying appropriate structures, using partnerships, corporate vehicles and trusts
• Tax reporting for funds, investors and executives
• Management vehicles and incentive arrangements

Trusts are an integral part of a family’s overall tax planning strategy. We advise on all aspects of setting up, administering and, where necessary, the winding up of trusts.  Despite recent tax changes, trusts still offer families an effective means of passing wealth down the generations whilst providing protection from marital breakdown, family disputes, bankruptcy and “wayward” beneficiaries. 

We are a dedicated team of qualified trust professionals, including members of the Society for Trust & Estate Practitioners (STEP), who have excellent relations with lawyers, investment managers, offshore trust companies and other private wealth advisers. BDO was one of the founding members of STEP.

Our trusts and estates advisers are part of the wider Private Client Services team. They draw on the expertise of our personal tax advisers and the specialist teams advising on charities and international matters. Our Family Office team can also deliver a comprehensive set of services, including compliance and assurance, in the UK and internationally.

Our wider services include:

• Advising on best practice for trustees and, in conjunction with investment managers, determining the trustees’ investment policies
• Advising on trust deeds, resolutions and the tax efficiency of Wills
• Advising trustees, settlers and beneficiaries of the benefits, liabilities and required compliance of offshore trusts and their underlying companies
• Charitable trust tax returns and repayment claims, Charity Commission annual returns and general charitable compliance
• Completion of annual charitable trust accounts in compliance with SORP requirements
• Completion of annual trust accounts, trust tax returns, beneficiaries tax certificates and general trust compliance for UK and non-UK resident trusts
• Detailed advice on availability of inheritance tax reliefs, in particular business property relief and reviews of companies to advise on availability of relief
• Inheritance tax and capital gains tax advice.

Family businesses are the backbone of the UK economy. Families can be a source of strength and bring a unity of purpose and long-term vision that helps drive a business. Mixing family and business can also create a specific set of challenges.

These can include the roles open to family members, the demands of balancing family and non-family stakeholders or maintaining engagement with a large and disparate group of family shareholders. Governance, conflict management and succession planning are just some of the areas where we help family-owned businesses to make the most of their attributes and continue their success.

Our clients include a range of family-owned and family operated businesses. We work with first generation businesses with a single shareholder as well as multi-generational businesses with a broad group of shareholders and stakeholders.

Family businesses; planning for long-term success

As a family becomes more successful, complexity can also increase. You are busier, you own more assets, your family has grown and moved. With all these balls in the air, you can reach a point where you would benefit from more formal planning and expert advice in managing all this.

In the short term you might want to understand the best way to structure a new property acquisition or PE investment or perhaps what needs to be considered when a family member moves country. Then there are the more long-term projects such as articulating family values and creating a family constitution, preparing younger family members for their future roles and legacy and succession planning.

Looking after the family in the Family business

At the other end of the spectrum, you may already have or be considering a Family Office to manage and coordinate the many and varied interests of your family outside the family business. We offer a comprehensive range of Family Office advisory services.

We offer a wide range of services for enterprising families and can advise and support you on more than just tax.

Family business; Governance and succession

Common areas of interest among our clients include planning for the involvement of younger family members in the business, managing a large group of family shareholders and implementing family governance arrangements such as family councils. For others, they are trying to decide whether to retain or sell the business they founded or beginning a journey to diversify away from the family’s core business and broaden their portfolio of investments.

We can advise and support you through these discussions, share the experiences of other families who have gone through a similar process and help you to put in place and implement plans that will stand the text of time.

A family office is designed to support an enterprising family with their personal wealth. When done well, it safeguards the collective interests of the family while enabling individual family members to achieve their potential.

What a family office actually looks like in practice can vary considerably from family to family. Factors that influence this include the size of the family, the assets they own, the services they need, their short and long-term objectives and their budget.

What is almost universally true is that most families only know their own family office. In contrast, we have worked with many different ones over the years and can use this knowledge and experience to provide you with a better service, whether you want to engage in a large strategic project or simply find a specialist for a one-off piece of advice.

Establishing a Family Office

Do you need a family office? Where should it be located, and how should it be structured?

Our team can offer an initial conversation and explore these with you. Taking the time to understand the purpose and objectives of your family office at the outset can take a lot of the stress out of the process and ensure you build on strong and stable foundations. We can then work with you throughout the process as you design and then implement your plans. 

How we will help your Family Office

“What we appreciate most is the team’s ability to provide expert advice on accounting and tax matters with the highest integrity. This has added excellent value for our company.”
– Family Office, Switzerland

You may already have your own family office or perhaps you are just interested in better organising your family’s interests.

In either case, we can provide prompt and practical advice for day-to-day matters, whether this relates to family members’ personal situations, their assets or the family office operations. Our family office clients appreciate the comprehensive range of advice and services they can access through one relationship contact at BDO as well as the trust and levels of personal service that are the foundations of our business.

Whether or not a full family office is the right route for you, we can help you to organise your affairs effectively and with purpose.

Our Family Office Services include;

Your family

• Wealth and asset structuring including the use of trusts and family investment companies
• Articulating family values and preparing family constitutions
• Philanthropy
• Next generation planning and support
• Divorce/matrimonial support
• Personal tax returns and compliance

Your Family Office

• Family Office establishment and governance structuring
• Strategic reviews
• Employment tax advice and compliance
• Cyber security and regulatory compliance
• Structuring
• Payroll and company secretarial services
• Management incentives
• Risk management
• Sustainability and ESG
• Audit and assurance

Your assets

• Capital gains planning, optimising tax rates and reliefs
• Property development and investment
• Capital allowances, stamp duty land tax and VAT
• Tax structuring for investments, fund management and private equity
• Tax reporting for funds, investors and executives
• Structuring luxury assets
• Buy and sell-side support for direct private equity
• Valuations

Family business advice

We collaborate with our colleagues in the dedicated Family Business advisory team who work with family-owned and family run businesses to help them overcome the unique challenges they face.