ESTATE PROTECTION AND SUCCESSION

Running a company? Wish to secure it against business risks? Thinking how to best plan its transfer to your next of kin? Wishing to put appropriate mechanisms in place and order wealth and family matters, but don’t know where to start?

Or having many assets and minor children? Thinking how to secure your wealth so that it can work for the people for whom you work hard every day?

Owning an estate abroad and thinking what the inheritance proceedings will be like? Not sure whether your closest family is secured, i.e. will they manage with the formalities should the need arise?

What do we offer?

We assist our clients in planning transfers to the next generations. We analyse the asset and family situation in detail to find the matching solution. Taking into account the highly sensitive nature of such matters, we prepare and implement comprehensive succession models and wealth protection concepts.

Are you in good hands?

We have the longest experience on the market.

• We have been following the changing geopolitical, regulatory, and tax law conditions since late 1990s.
• Since then, we have established – both in Poland and abroad – more than 150 family structures aimed at preservation of family wealth, in more than 20 of which Anna Maria Panasiuk, LL.D., acted herself as the trustee, asset protector, executor of the will, or member of the Supervisory Board.
• We identify the areas that may potentially generate risks and problems;
• We remember and remind our clients about diversification!
• Owing to her many years of practice in maintenance and running international structures, helps Anna Maria Panasiuk, LL.D., provide advice not only on legal and tax matters but also on costs, practical use and further maintenance and management of family structures.

What is the process like and how can we help

• We provide advice in decision-making, by answering your questions and presenting detailed solutions for each of your issues.
• We devise a time schedule for implementation stage, based on the scenario of the client’s choice.
• We analyse the possible alternative solutions.
• We implement the concept in legal, tax, and financial terms.
• We conduct regular audits of the implemented solution to validate the adopted model and prepare any fixes or updates, if necessary. We renegotiate the maintenance costs whenever necessary.
• We guarantee discretion, sensitivity, and empathy necessary to understand the importance of family relations and delicate nature of these matters.
• The clients show their confidence in our services by appointing our law firm’s managing partner – Anna Maria Panasiuk, LL.D. – as the executor of their will or the protector of their foreign foundation.

In Poland and abroad

• We provide comprehensive assistance in taking control over a family business.
• We draft trusteeship agreements.
• We help draft last wills and testaments, family foundation charters, and act as executors of wills.
• We act as trustees in private foundations abroad.
• We handle succession proceedings abroad.
• We ensure smooth and safe process of succession with cross-border implications.
• We establish and run foreign family foundations.
• We reflect the will of the persons planning succession as fully as possible by drafting relevant documents laying down the terms of beneficiaries’ shares and putting control mechanisms in place.

Project examples:

SUCCESSION CONCEPT FOR A FAMILY OWNING MANUFACTURING COMPANIES ON 3 CONTINENTS

We have developed a succession concept for a group of several food manufacturing companies (including in Poland, the EU, South-East Asia, and Southern America) operating on global markets and as co-packer for global brands. We have taken into account the structure of family holding company and the group reorganisation plan, and chosen the best course of action.

SUCCESSION CONCEPT AND IMPLEMENTATION FOR A FAMOUS ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY

Comprehensive consultancy for a wealthy Polish aristocratic family on transfer and securing of family assets, assistance in repatriation of funds to the family.

ADVISING A MED-TECH COMPANY ON SUCCESSION

Succession in one of Poland’s longest operating med-tech (medical technologies) commercial companies with over 70 years of history; We provided assistance in devising the concept and ensuring smooth transfer to the fourth generation.

ADVISING ON ESTABLISHING HERSE FAMILY’S PRIVATE FOUNDATION

Advising on establishing Herse Family’s private foundation in Warsaw to restore the memory and operations of “Bogusław Herse Fashion House, the most famous and the largest one in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe pre-WWII”.

PREPARING SUCCESSION IN THE POLISH KONIMPEX GROUP

Preparing a preliminary concept of succession for the Polish Konimpex Group (logistics and distribution of chemical and industrial raw materials) comprising investment companies worth approximately PLN 350mn. Our job was to devise a detailed concept of business succession for the employees, the foundation, and taking care of the heir’s interests. In addition to devising detailed legal and tax provisions, our key task was to obtain a precedent tax ruling from the Regional Administrative Court.