Cummings & Lockwood counsels private clients and their family offices and closely held businesses on an array of legal matters, ranging from entity planning and family governance issues to advising on the management of diverse investment portfolios, family trust structures and private foundations which are often part of large family offices. We also assist with the formation of closely held businesses and investment vehicles, including those with concentrated real estate or securities holdings.
The firm’s general focus on private clients enables us to advise families on their immediate financial and investment goals, as well as on their long-term estate and charitable planning strategies.
We offer clients a multi-disciplinary approach to managing family offices and closely held businesses and deliver services that are tailored to their specific legal, business and personal circumstances, needs and objectives.
Below is a summary of how Cummings & Lockwood can help your family office or closely held business.
Estate and Tax Planning
Family offices and closely held businesses often serve as vehicles for our clients’ current and long-term personal, family, financial and tax objectives. Our family offices and closely held businesses practice is a natural complement to our estate planning practice.
We help affluent families develop and implement comprehensive and sophisticated estate, gift and tax planning strategies. Our services include strategies to preserve and transition family wealth; fiduciary services with respect to trusts, estates and investment vehicles; trust administration and fiduciary accounting; and estate settlement and tax preparation.
Wealth Protection Planning
Our private client, commercial and litigation attorneys are well-suited to identify and protect against risks that may threaten family wealth. Our family offices and closely held businesses practice focuses on the protection of family wealth and assets through the assessment and implementation of contractual, operational and tax strategies using family office and family business entities.
Charitable Planning; Philanthropic Giving
Charitable giving is a key component in many long-term family plans, and our sophisticated and accomplished charitable planning attorneys help clients use family offices and family business entities to further clients’ charitable goals.
Our family office practice not only covers charitable giving by a family office or family business, but also works together with family offices and separate private foundations and other charitable organizations of the families to harmonize family, charitable and business goals in a tax-efficient manner.
We assist clients in the creation, implementation, monitoring and administration of various charitable structures, including charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, private foundations and donor advised funds.
Business Succession Planning
We help owners of privately held or family owned companies, including traditional operating businesses, entrepreneurial enterprises or family investment partnerships, in the development and implementation of business succession plans. We also assist family offices with the establishment of succession plans for fiduciaries, family office executives and advisors.
In addition, for closely held business interests, we often assist in the development and implementation of tax-efficient strategies for transferring ownership and control through family generations, either during the owner’s lifetime and/or at death. For those looking to sell an operating business now or as part of an ultimate succession plan, we can assist with the sale and/or the conversion of an operating business into an investment-oriented family venture.
Corporate Governance; Partnerships, LLCs, LLPs and Joint Ventures
The attorneys in our family offices and closely held businesses practice group help family principals and their family offices with the selection and development of the most appropriate structures or entities for their business ventures, including partnerships, limited liability companies (LLCs), limited liability partnerships (LLPs) and joint ventures. We provide counsel on the rules, policies and procedures that govern these entities. We prepare and file the relevant formation documentation.
We also advise directors, managers and members of family offices on corporate governance matters to ensure that they are in compliance with applicable law, to protect them against potential liabilities and to counsel them on business transition to the next generation.
Equity Financing; Loan Transactions and Financings; Venture Capital
We work with family offices and business entities in evaluating and undertaking different types of investments, including investments in private equity and hedge funds, angel and venture capital investing, and direct company investments. We represent clients both on the target and investor sides; assisting them in all steps of complex transactions, from assessment of opportunities and negotiation of terms to drafting documentation and closing.
Mergers and Acquisitions
In addition to helping clients establish business operations and business partnerships, we assist family offices and closely held businesses in the acquisition and divestiture of family office holdings, whether consisting of private equity and similar investments or mature and family-controlled businesses. Our involvement in mergers and acquisitions may involve serving as primary counsel for buyers or sellers, or as conflicts counsel for specific family members or trusts.
Commercial and Residential Real Estate
We represent our clients in the acquisition, disposition, financing, leasing and management of commercial and residential real estate, from personal residences and vacation homes to larger investment and commercial properties. Our core expertise in the commercial real estate area extends to all aspects of the commercial real estate holdings of our family office and closely held business clients.
Litigation, Arbitration and Dispute Resolution
Our broad knowledge of the goals and viewpoints of family offices and closely held businesses from the perspectives of both the current and next generation makes us well-suited to assist in mediating, litigating, arbitrating and otherwise resolving disputes over ownership, management and control.
Our litigators have experience in representing family office and closely held business officers and managers against claims from family members or investors for breach of fiduciary duties and other management-related claims.
We also assist both family offices and closely held businesses and individual owners in resolving disputes related to dissolution, freeze-outs, investments, majority and minority partner rights, misappropriation of company assets and other commercial, employment, real estate and probate and tax disputes.
Contact Information
For more information about how Cummings & Lockwood can help your family office or closely held business, please contact your Cummings & Lockwood attorney or Brendan P. Snowden at 203.351.4209 or via email at bsnowden@cl-law.com.
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