Advisors to family offices have to keep on their toes due to the ever-changing nature of these structures. Over the years, different factors have come into play that affect family management, as well as the type of investments that a family office makes. For example, family offices struggle to appeal to the interests of Millennials to keep them engaged and need to select the right modern trust vehicles to hold their assets. Even single family offices are evolving in new ways as they provide additional and more sophisticated services. They need to think creatively to survive in a new environment. The articles in this month’s High-Net-Worth Families & Family Offices Committee Report address these changes in detail.
Practitioners also face challenges when advising another client group: immigrants. The changing political environment has introduced many complexities in cross-border estate and tax planning. In Part 1 of their article on this topic, “Coming to America,” p. 13, Steve Maggi, Jay Scheidlinger and Jonathan I. Shenkman provide an overview of the different categories of immigrant status and explore the legal challenges involved in estate planning in the Trump era. Part 2 (to be published in September) will explore international estate and financial planning for new immigrants.
Finally, our editorial advisory board is also changing and evolving. Julia Chu has stepped down from the Philanthropy Committee. We thank her for her years of service. Carolyn L. Stiles, principal of State Street Global Advisors in Boston, has joined the Committee. We welcome her and look forward to her contributions to Trusts & Estates.