The conversation, chaired
Who owns, who runs, who benefits. Families cannot easily have this meeting with each other. We chair it, and the family survives it.
Succession
Succession for family enterprises
that intend to survive the founder.
The structure, the governance, and the transfer, put in place
while it is still a plan and not an emergency. One firm, in
confidence, across jurisdictions. By introduction. In confidence.
In UBS's 2026 Global Family Office Report, only 35 percent of family offices had
a defined succession plan.
The other 65 percent have a date they do not know yet.
We chair the conversation the family has been postponing, document the intent, build the ownership structure with
counsel, install the governance, and run the transfer in stages.
The mandate suits founders preparing early, next generations stepping up, and families whose honest answer might be a sale, which we will say out loud if it is.
Succession takes several forms.
The founder, preparing early
Years ahead, on purpose. The cheapest succession is the one designed before anyone needs it.
The next generation, stepping up
Ownership, management, or both, transferred in stages with the training wheels designed in, then removed.
The family without an heir
Nobody wants it, or nobody should have it. The honest alternatives are a sale or a buyout by the team, and both are mandates we run.
The sudden gap
Illness or death has moved the date. The work is triage first, structure second, and the family held together throughout.
The governance retrofit
The business is fine; the arrangements behind it are a handshake. Written down now, while everyone still agrees on what was shaken on.
The programme.
Six phases, run in sequence.
The full programme typically runs twelve to twenty-four months; the constitution alone is not the work.
I
Screening
The conversation first, under NDA if you prefer. The enterprise, the generation holding it, the generation next, and whether we are the right firm. If we are not, we say so.
II
The intent
What the family actually wants, said out loud and written down: who owns, who runs, who benefits, and what the enterprise is for. Most families have never had this meeting. We chair it.
III
The structure
The ownership architecture built with counsel: holdings, trusts or their local equivalents, and the tax and jurisdictional consequences resolved before the transfer, not after.
IV
The governance
The constitution, the shareholder agreement, the council. The documents that will govern the family when the founder is no longer in the room to.
V
The transfer
Staged, sequenced, and reversible where it can be: shares, roles, signatures, and authority moving on a timetable everyone signed.
VI
The rhythm
The annual cycle installed: the council meets, the accounts are read, the policy is applied. Governance that is only paper is only paper.
Succession fails in the unsaid, not the unsigned. The intent phase exists because a perfect structure built on an unspoken disagreement is a perfectly structured dispute.
The shape of it.
The transfer is a moment.
The governance is what survives it.
The founder
the enterprise,
first generation
The transfer
The next generation
owning, running,
or both, by design
Family
constitution
Shareholder
agreement
Family
council
The moment of transfer rests on the documents beneath it.
Dashed, because most families never write them.
The clementine square is the handover itself: one signature, one afternoon. Everything that makes it hold is underneath, drafted years earlier or not at all.
Why Families Engage Us
The intent, documented
What the family decided, in writing, before the structure is built on it. Ambiguity is the estate's most expensive asset.
The structure, with counsel
Holdings and transfer architecture built with lawyers in every relevant jurisdiction, tax consequences resolved before the shares move.
Governance that outlives the founder
Constitution, shareholder agreement, council. Written for the year the founder is not in the room.
Cross-border, natively
Heirs in three countries, assets in five. The estate is multi-jurisdictional whether the plan is or not; the plan should be.
Nothing to sell you
The firm does not manage assets and takes no custody. Counsel with no product behind it, which matters most in exactly this mandate.
What gets written down.
The instruments and what they decide.
What it decides
Family constitution
What it decides
What the enterprise is for, who the family is, and how it decides. The document the others answer to.
Shareholder agreement
What it decides
Ownership, transfers, pre-emption, and what a share is worth when someone leaves. The enforceable one.
Council & assembly
What it decides
Who meets, how often, and with what authority. Governance with a calendar, or it is not governance.
Employment policy
What it decides
Family in the business on what terms: entry, pay, promotion, exit. Written before it is about a specific person.
Dividend policy
What it decides
What the enterprise pays out and what it keeps, agreed as policy rather than negotiated as grievance.
Exit valve
What it decides
How a branch sells, at what value, on what timetable. The clause that prevents the lawsuit.
UBS Global Family Office Report 2026: of 307 family offices surveyed, average family wealth US$2.7 billion, only 35 percent had a defined succession plan.
The work commonly covers: ownership architecture · governance · the next generation's preparation · liquidity for exiting branches · the founder's role, redefined
What we act on.
The firm acts for families with an operating enterprise or substantial holdings and a transfer in view.
Whether the date is chosen or arriving on its own. Typically first-to-second and second-to-third generation transitions, typically with heirs, assets, or structures across borders.
The firm does not manage assets and does not take custody. Terms are set out plainly in the Engagement Agreement before any work begins.
Asked before most mandates.
When should we start?
Ten years early, or now, whichever comes first. Every year of runway makes the transfer cheaper, quieter, and more reversible; the sudden version costs the most in every currency.
Does succession mean the children run it?
No. Ownership and management are separate questions with separate answers. Many of the best successions transfer ownership to the family and management to professionals, on terms the governance enforces.
What if the next generation does not want it?
Then the plan is a sale or a buyout by the team, decided while it is a choice. Pretending otherwise for a decade is how enterprises arrive at the worst version of both.
How do we keep it fair across siblings?
Fair is not always equal, and the difference is exactly what the intent phase settles. Roles, shares, and liquidity are designed so that the child in the business and the child outside it can both sign without resentment.
What does a family constitution actually do?
It records what the family agreed while agreement was easy, so the disagreement, when it comes, has rules. It is not usually enforceable in court; the shareholder agreement beneath it is, and we draft them to match.
What does it cost?
The commercial terms are set out plainly in the Engagement Agreement before any work begins, structured around the programme. There are no surprises in our paperwork. The entire mandate exists to remove them from the family's.
No public references.
The firm does not name clients, counterparties, or terms.
Not in marketing, not in conversation, not after the fact. The
families best placed to vouch for the work are the reason
we will not ask them to. If discretion matters inside the family,
it should matter to the firm that writes its rules.
Adjacent to this mandate.
The plan, before
the date.
Every mandate begins with a conversation. Outline the enterprise and the generation holding it, in confidence. If we are the right firm for it, we will say how the programme would run. If we are not, we will say that too. Request an Introduction, in confidence. No obligation. An NDA is available before any detail is shared.