Sixty seconds with
Anya Brunander 1. Please tell us a bit more about your company and what makes you so special ? Firstly by keeping it simple. In an age where most things can be set up online via intuitive software, setting up Swiss and Luxembourg companies and other entities, isn’t one of those things. It involves, original documents and notary certifications. Our clients are extremely busy, often travelling frequently. They just need it done. We have developed a process whereby we fulfill all compliance obligations but bother the client the least possible. We also practice fixed pricing, so clients can weigh up the cost of running this entity against what they are saving by having the entity. Secondly by treating you as a family office client. This is where we run our family office, and we run those of many of our clients. So we don’t just think in terms of a stand-alone company you may have with us. We think of that company we run for you as a piece of your puzzle which needs to fit into your structure. By looking at it from this perspective, and being in touch with your other administrators, we can often identify savings and optimize. 2. What services do you offer for high-net-worth clients, who are seeking to protect their assets for their families’ next generation in the increasingly complex tax landscape? While you can keep the set up of an entity simple – there is no one stop solution for solving the inheritance puzzle. Clients reside in different jurisdictions and own assets in a variety of other jurisdictions. Their children will likely relocate to new residencies between the time you set up a structure and when the inheritance takes place. I wish I could tell you we are a one stop shop for solving the inheritance issues of a family – but we aren’t. I haven't found anyone who is. It’s a floating issue together with the movements of the family. However, having assets compartmentalized in their own entities, and not owning assets personally where that is not favorable taxwise, makes you less exposed, and the solution for inheritance easier and faster to implement in the case of an inheritance event. Very often, it is a lawyer or accountant or other professional that approaches us. 56
3. Since you run your own family office out of F Trust, your slogan: “...to treat your clients like your own family...” is more than justified - if you can elaborate on that. Above I mentioned how its important to do a bit more than your basic mandate: not just look at the company you were asked to set up and manage, but ask to speak to other administrators of your clients assets in other countries to see if there is some optimization or synergy we can find. In the same way we do a bit more than our job to help the client to get something sorted.
The client wants to set up a Swiss company, but just doesn’t get the paperwork printed and signed and sent back? We don’t leave this problem with them. We get through to the housekeeper to put the papers in an envelope, and we will arrange the courier to pick up, giving her contact details. I find it often comes down to a missing link that someone needs to solve, but no one steps in. There is always a difference if its your own money you are talking about or someone else’s. Ever get the feeling that someone you employ might not double check the telephone bill as carefully as if you did it yourself? Well we check that telephone bill as if it were our own. I think that is a metaphor anyone can understand to describe our approach.
4. What support do you offer HNWIs to meet the requirements of direct investments in so called nonresidential real estate and how do you deal with cross border/multijurisdictional matter for your clients ? Direct investment in residential as well as commercial real estate is what our own family office has the heaviest weighting in. Investment in real estate is a tricky beast. If you do it via funds, you pay high management fees and its often not completely transparent. If you invest directly, there are high due diligence costs and legal fees, not to mention a lot of management. So it’s a question of having a network of good real estate lawyers and optimizing your management costs. F Trust comes in when you choose in which company to own the property. This choice depends on tax treaties between the country where the property is and the countries where you are considering holding it, it depends on what the plan is: Is it buy and hold where you will take dividends; is it development where you will sell (and capital gains tax is important); is it for own use?
In general here as well, keeping it simple is generally the best way forward. Complicated structures are not always the best, even though companies like ours often want to sell complicated structures as this is how we make money, we don’t do this. We just do what's best and most cost effective for the client, just like I do on investments where it is my own family purchasing.
Trusts and foundations are difficult beasts, they can be put into question and undone by authorities if not extremely carefully managed. They also don’t allow for flexible movement of the next generation. Trusts are set up with the residency of the next generation at the time of set up. But young generations are very mobile and move, and you can't change trusts or structures at that same fast rate. We see some of our families giving their next generations large shares in companies - both holding and operating companies. This means that even if at the time of decease the next generation isn’t living in the optimal country to avoid high inheritance taxes, they don’t need to, because the funds can simply stay in the company. And they can take the time they then need to re-structure holding companies and take dividends when it’s the right time and they choose to. This has the added advantage that the assets are not run by some Trustee in a faraway place, the next generation is on the board themselves and need to take decisions and be default cannot avoid learning about the activities of the company. Of course with the help of some good lawyers to chair the board and advise them, there is no time like the now to get things sorted. Anya, we thank you for the interview.
5. Finally: What's the best piece of advice given to you ? Pass on your wealth while you are alive. Most hold on to their money, don’t spend anything like what they could (let's not forget some spending is good spending: property, art, vintage cars, even handbags increase in value while being nice to own) and then when they pass away, they leave their loved ones with a headache.
Anya combines knowledge from two distinctly different industries: that of fiduciary services in banking and that of entrepreneurship and venture capital. Anya founded F Trust AG in 2007 with the purpose of assisting clients in venture capital and private equity in structuring their investments into the appropriate jurisdictions, to manage risk and optimize dividends and exits. Today the company works directly with families and entrepreneurs, as well as acts as provider of companies and administration of these law and accounting firms internationally. Anya began her career in online brokerage at Internaxx (the Online brokerage subsidiary of Banque Générale de Luxembourg) and Saxo Bank. She previously worked with PriceWaterHouse Coopers and Ernst & Young. She holds an MBA from ESCP-EAP, Paris and BA from Edinburgh University. Australian and Danish by birth, Anya has lived and worked in Luxembourg, Paris, Copenhagen, Zürich and is now based in UK
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