Estate Living Digital Publication Issue 6 June 2015 | Page 38

sums of money as they begin to receive
distributions from trusts their parents,
grandparents or other family members
have established.”
“The challenge is to prepare, manage,
and educate the next generation on
family wealth. To meet that challenge,
it’s critical to source expert assistance
and knowledge that will help them
grapple, not only with the principles of
finance, but also with understanding
how inherited wealth will change their
lives” continues Ratcliffe.

INVESTMENT SAVVY

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Ratcliffe advises that as the needs
of wealthy families become more
complex, these families would be remiss
to not contract external expertise such
as those offered by a Family Office.

“A Family Office
provides the
support of a highly
qualified, multidisciplinary team of
advisers, who look
at the big picture
and devise a holistic
strategy for managing
a family’s wealth
and ideally improving
a family’s overall
financial welfare.”

A Family Office acts as an intermediary
between the family and estate planning
attorneys and a family can expect them
to assist in determining an appropriate
asset allocation and investment
management strategy as well as the
paying of bills, the management of
insurance policies, the preparation of
tax returns, the liquidation of assets
for spending and enhancing the estate
planning process” “A Family Office will
also simplify and organise family affairs
and help provide expert strategies to
preserve wealth, define and sustain
family values and create legacies at
one single source by a trusted group of
multi-disciplinary experts.”
“So much goes into creating a financial
legacy, but it can take so little to
destroy it. By working with a Family
Office, families with generational
wealth can work with experts in
handling multigenerational planning
and decision making to help build and
protect the family’s wealth and navigate
g generational wealth transitions that
will see the legacy growing for the next
generations,” concludes Ratcliffe.
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