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Like many families, you may be involved in running businesses or other types of investments together with other family members, but is this necessarily the right choice? Should you consider breaking away and creating your own path. The decision on whether to stick together or unbundle collective assets into separate ownership and investment structu...

Avoiding the issue of succession planning is much easier than starting a conversation about handing over the reins to other family members. But avoidance does not defer the inevitable, and it puts family harmony and wealth at risk. As patriarchs and matriarchs of wealth families confront the issue of succession planning, there are seven questions f...

When it comes to reaching your family’s financial objectives and perpetuating its wealth, integrated family wealth planning is critical. A family governance system can significantly facilitate that process. This evergreen guide offers best practices and key elements of an effective family governance system, one that can be instrumental and flexible...

Governance is a word often misunderstood by families and family offices, but it is essential for a long-lasting family legacy. Strong governance establishes a process for decision-making and conformity within a multi-generational family to promote communication and strengthen unity, helping to preserve wealth and solidarity for future generations. ...

Family governance need not be an oxymoron. A conscious family governance system can help create an efficient and rewarding means of ensuring the family enterprise’s viability for generations to come. Therefore, any family enterprise that seeks to maintain and grow its wealth—financial, human, social, and intellectual—should consider creating a...

Creating portfolios that are customized to a family’s unique investment goals and risk tolerance requires ingenuity and flexible thinking. However, the execution of risk management should be more systematic. Ultimately, the effective investors employ a risk management framework that accounts for potential risk at every stage of the investment proce...

Wealthy families often take every precaution in preserving their legacies for future generations, with carefully constructed estate plans, wills, and trusts. But they often overlook the hidden factor that can undermine all these plans, and it isn’t investment returns or poor estate planning: It’s family dynamics. Studies have shown that the main re...

Family-owned businesses are an important part of the economy, and they face unique challenges due to the dynamics of family relationships. With family members involved in both ownership and management, decision-making processes can be complex and challenging, so it is crucial that family-owned businesses develop governance structures before a need ...

In moving past the “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” adage, advisors in the family wealth space are emphasizing the importance of the family’s qualitative capitals that go beyond serving only the financial capital goals. This shift has elevated the family client experience and expectations. It’s part of the Wealth 3.0 movement tha...

Robust governance practices form the cornerstone of success for the family wealth enterprise, and ongoing succession planning is one element of a mature governance system. As family considers its future succession, it is vital to understand why a well-conceived plan is so important and what the critical elements of the plan entail. Here, we outline...

For most of the period from the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 through the end of the COVID pandemic in 2022, the Federal Reserve held interest rates near zero. As post-pandemic inflation surged in early 2022, the Federal Reserve began a rapid rate-hike cycle that ended in July 2023 with the Federal Funds Rate at 5.25% - 5.50%. As noted in this In...

The family office industry is constantly evolving, and the family offices that embrace the changing dynamics continue to be successful in achieving their overall purpose. As in the first edition, this second edition of the Plante Moran Family Office Book provides timely and relevant insights to help family office professionals manage, operate, and ...

Sustaining wealth across multiple generations require more than financial planning. Interrelated and building off one another, 25 non-financial best governance practices have been identified as having a positive impact on the ultimate success of sustaining wealth for enterprise families. By employing these best practices—that are anchored along the...

When setting up a family legacy plan that extends across generations, it’s vital to have a family governance plan that empowers a family to govern its wealth and enterprises as a cohesive unit. While each family is unique, the keys to incorporating an effective family governance will be uniting around shared purposes, having a written family consti...

After the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse marked another bank failure, it triggered questions regarding the various considerations and options for holding short-term funds. With this reference chart, see the comparisons that show the characteristics of demand deposits with government securities and various money market funds as cash managem...