Estate and business succession
Transfer wealth through estate and succession planning
What this is really about.
Everything you have built eventually passes to someone — and where there is a business, it is usually the largest part of it and the hardest to hand over. Both halves come down to the same thing: decisions only you can make, written down early enough that nobody has to guess at them later.
What clients come to us with — the estate.
Estate planning gets postponed because it feels like a document you write once, at the end. It is closer to the opposite: a set of decisions that only you can make, written down early enough that nobody has to guess at them later. Done properly, it is the difference between a family that grieves and a family that grieves while dealing with paperwork, delay and disagreement.
-
Do I even know everything I own, written down in one place?
Property, CPF, insurance, investments, business interests, and anything held outside Singapore. Most people have never seen it written on one page.
-
Who should receive what — and who will have to administer it?
Beneficiaries, dependants who need protecting rather than simply inheriting, and the people who will have to administer it.
-
I have been meaning to write a will. Where do I start?
Put in place with the will-writing and trust companies we work with.
-
Can what I leave behind be protected from events outside my family’s control?
Structures that hold up against events outside a family's control.
-
How do I leave a specific sum to a specific person, or keep it fair between my children?
Where a policy is the cleanest way to leave a specific sum to a specific person, or to equalise between children when the assets themselves cannot be split.
What owners come to us with — the business.
For most owners the business is the estate. It is also the part that cannot simply be divided — it has to keep running while it changes hands, and the people running it have to be able to afford to take it on. Succession planning is the work of answering those questions while you are still the one answering them.
-
Who takes over the business when I stop?
Family, a co-owner, management, or a sale. Each leads somewhere different and the answer shapes everything after it.
-
My successor is ready — but can they afford to take it on?
A successor being ready is not the same as a successor being able to pay. This is usually the gap.
-
What happens if I am not here to hand it over?
Death, illness or incapacity does not wait for the plan to be finished. The interim arrangement matters as much as the eventual one.
-
How do I keep my key people through a change of ownership?
A business changing hands is a business whose key staff are being approached by everyone else.
-
One child runs the business and one does not. How is that fair to both?
Where one child runs the business and another does not, treating them equally and treating them fairly are two different problems.
-
Who else needs to be in the room — lawyer, accountant, tax adviser?
Corporate secretarial, accounting, tax, legal, and where there is a sale, M&A.
The information on this page is general in nature and does not take account of your particular objectives, financial situation or needs. General advice disclaimer (opens in a new tab).
Most people put this off for a decade.
One conversation is usually enough to see how much of it actually applies to you.