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Many family businesses are undergoing or anticipating transitions, prompting the need for trusted advisors more than ever. This session features experts who have deep breadth of experience in helping families manage business transitions and the complexity that comes with them, including new liquidity, helping founders find their next purpose, and m...

It’s no secret the investment world has changed, causing many family offices to re-evaluate the way they invest. During this session, FOX members will share the process they went through to reorganize their investment function. They’ll explain how they managed the restructuring of investment governance, outsourced relationships, underlying portfoli...

The decision to sell or continue ownership of a family business is complex. Business owning families who recognize early the importance of both the financial and non-financial considerations of a potential sale are more likely to make good transition decisions.

No matter what stage of the business cycle you are in, you should always have a defined strategy for your business operations and potential exit. For many family business owners, the sale of their business will be the single largest transaction of their lives. Yet many enter this transaction not fully prepared. To ensure you maximize your sale, the...

The death of a loved one is a difficult and emotional time for a family. There is often additional stress if you are appointed as the executor of the will and trustee of your family’s trusts, especially if the deceased had been the sole manager of substantial family assets and wealth. For an untrained person, it can be a daunting role. For these re...

When done well, a trustee’s service can have a profoundly positive impact on a family; when done poorly, a trustee’s service can create or exacerbate fissures within a family, dissipate family wealth, create personal liability for the trustee, and create a public spectacle that sullies the family’s good name and reputation. For key employees in fam...

While many business owners are struggling to find qualified successors, family members oftentimes oppose proposed sales to outsiders because they think they should have the chance to take over the business. Research from Rothstein Kass suggests that advance planning can minimize family squabbles and ensure smoother business transitions.

Ultimately, how well your wealth transfer plan fulfills your legacy and meets the needs of the next—and future—generations depends on whom you name as your trustee(s). This makes your trustee selection one of the most critical aspects of an already complex wealth planning process. To help navigate this selection process, work with a framework built...

Serving as a trustee for your family can be a valuable experience for you, while also providing an important service to your family. But before you accept the position, make sure that you understand the role you will play for the family and are willing to accept the responsibilities and liability that come with it.

To effectively serve as a trustee, it's crucial to understand your fiduciary duties. Even trustees with the best of intentions can create liability for themselves by being unprepared for the job or by not fully understanding their obligations. Learn more about some of the common mistakes family trustees make that can lead to lawsuits and other...

Contrary to conventional “wisdom,” decisions regarding manager selection can impact performance as much as or more than decisions regarding asset allocation. Success in this manner involves the ability to identify and access managers who are often not available in common formats, such as mutual funds and most open-architecture investment platforms.

Manager selection is a critical component of success in any asset class, but particularly in private equity, where manager return dispersion is meaningfully wider than in public markets. Over time, the factors influencing private equity manager selection have become more complex. Investors should account for these changes but remain focused on key ...

Investment broker and manager fees are not always aligned with the value they provide. Given low prospective returns, fee awareness is more important than ever if investors are going to meet their investment objectives. Investors can use a simple, objective framework to determine if a manager’s fee is worth the value they add.

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...

Leaders of founder-owned businesses embarking on a liquidity event often have never been through a sale process or conducted a formal capital raise. It’s a complex process—so they often turn to outside advisors for guidance. In preparation for it, consider the questions advisors are likely to ask, as well as which questions might produce the best p...