We advise family-owned groups, in Monaco and internationally, on the transactions that shape what the group will be a generation from now: succession, reorganization, shareholder arrangements, and international expansion.
We work directly with the owners, the chairman and the chief executive.
What brings a family group to us
A succession being prepared, and a valuation that has to withstand the family’s scrutiny before it withstands a buyer’s.
A reorganization: a group that has grown by accumulation and whose structure no longer matches what it does.
A shareholders’ agreement written for a family of three that now has eleven members and two branches with different intentions.
An international expansion, or a European or Monegasque base to open, with the authorization regime and the substance requirements that come with it.
One question, two dimensions
In a family group, the legal question and the financial question are the same question in different guises: who holds what, at what value, with which rights, and what it costs to move any of it. Structure, valuation, financial consequences, and tax are assessed together, by the same partners on the same matter.
Governance is a value question
Family governance is usually presented as a matter of harmony. It is first a matter of value. A group where control, reporting, and decision-making are clear is worth more, borrows on better terms, and survives a generational transfer. One where they are not will discover the difference at the worst possible moment.
This is the subject on which both partners are working toward what would be the first Monegasque university chair on governance. In the meantime, it is in every matter we handle.
Working from Monaco, not only on Monaco
Monaco is a hub. The families we work with hold entities in London, in Paris, in New York, and elsewhere, and the Monegasque component is one element of a set. We handle that component with the precision it requires, and we keep the rest of the picture in view.