In a flash, the end of March is nearly upon us. While we’ve seen more than enough disruption recently, it seems uncertainty is here to stay in 2022.
In this edition of Exchange, we are excited to announce the expansion of our holistic offerings to include a family office and legal practice. We also discuss our recent acquisition of Cohen and Krass, a long established and respected legal and accounting firm, which has made this exciting development possible.
Together, these two additions enable us to offer the end-to-end financial, accounting and legal services you need to achieve your goals – whatever surprises might face us in the year ahead.
What exactly is a Family Office?
While the concept of a ‘family office’ is not new, it is not a widely used term in Australia.
In financial services, a family office is an entity set up to professionally manage the investments, assets and finances of a private family or wealthy individual, with the objective of growing and transferring assets across multiple generations.
A family office differs from a regular financial advisory relationship because it spans complex financial, legal, tax, business, investment and compliance advice far broader than financial planning.
While we have already been acting as a family office for many clients over a number of years, Financial Decisions is formally offering end-to-end Family Office Solutions, now including our own in-house legal team to complete the package.
How does a Family Office help you and your family?
Managing your finances is an intricate, personal affair – especially in the context of preserving and accumulating your legacy across multiple generations. As your wealth scales up, so can the complexities of your business. This is magnified even further when unforeseen difficulties arise, including divorce, succession issues, the sale of assets, unexpected illness or death, and it can be difficult to know where to turn for support.
Much like a CFO overseeing a diverse business operation, Financial Decisions acts as your trusted advisor to guide you through strategic decisions and navigate the unique sensitivities and many moving parts of family legacies.
With a family office, it’s always business AND personal.
Our personalised range of services includes financial planning, investment advice, tax planning, accounting, asset allocation, estate planning, family governance, trusts, compliance, business advisory and legal advice. One phone call gives you access to integrated professional advice.
By relieving you of the heavy lifting of managing and administering your affairs, you are free to enjoy the fruits of your labour, focus on growth priorities or operate at a more strategic level. Our services are fully transparent at every step, meaning you can be as hands-on or off as you like.
And when life throws a curveball – whether an exciting opportunity like a business sale or new addition to the family, or challenges like health concerns or legal disputes – we’re here to help you navigate through it.
Private, secure and discrete, Financial Decisions Family Office Solutions help you create your organisational structures effectively as well as set up the ongoing discipline of managing, monitoring and optimising your portfolio over time.
As always, we tailor our advice to match your life stage, risk profile and objectives. As needed, we bring in relevant experts in investment, tax, debt, accounting and law from our integrated team, and we’re also happy to liaise with third-party professionals to achieve an outcome.
If you’re considering your legacy or want to learn more about the benefits of setting up a family office, we’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Welcome to our team Cohen and Krass
We are very pleased to have acquired premium accounting and legal firm Cohen and Krass. This fulfils our long-held ambition to offer one-stop financial planning, accounting and legal services, as well as a complete family office solution.
We have been looking to add an in-house legal team and we have finally found the ideal fit with legal expertise and a team culture that will seamlessly integrate into the business and drive it forward.
The Cohen and Krass team brings expert accountants and lawyers to complement and expand on our existing tax and accounting services. This increases our capability to offer specialist technical accounting solutions to individuals and businesses.
Our new range of legal services includes:
- Real estate law (residential/commercial)
- Building and development contracts
- Business formation, sales and transfers
- Buy/sell property, leases and subdivisions
- Commercial dealings, documents, disputes
- Conflict resolution and litigation
- Employment law
- Insolvency law
- Insurance claims
- Personal investments and family trusts
- Professional negligence
- Property and mortgage disputes
- Trade practices, unconscionable conduct
- Will preparation, estate planning
- Will and estate management and disputes
Your financial, business and legal concierge
At Financial Decisions, our founding vision has always been to offer a single point of contact for our clients to manage their financial, business and legal affairs across all stages of their professional and personal lives.
While we’ve always had a strong network of professional advisors, adding our own in-house legal division and building out a comprehensive Family Office Solution is an integrated extension of our long-term business plan.
With the vast majority of our clients coming from personal referrals, our business has been built on trust and mutual respect from day one. As a client, you deal with the business owners at every stage to form long-term relationships.
We are proud to operate as a 100% independently owned and operated business without influence.
End-to-end services under one roof
At Financial Decisions, our goal is to be a world class full service financial consulting firm of choice for Australia’s small to medium private companies and wealthy families.
Whether you’re building your career, growing a business, consolidating your portfolio or considering your legacy, our breadth of services under one roof means we can meet your evolving needs.
Thank you
We recently conducted a Client Satisfaction Survey to gather feedback from you, our clients. We appreciate and thank those who have completed the survey.
We will leave the lines open until 31 March – if you would like to participate, click here
Note that all feedback is anonymous.
Disclaimer: This publication has been compiled by Financial Decisions (AFSL/ACL Number 341678). Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. While every effort has been taken to ensure that the assumptions on which the outlooks given in this publication are based on reasonable data, the outlooks may be based on incorrect assumptions or may not take into account known or unknown risk and uncertainties. Material contained in this publication is an overview or summary only and it should not be considered a comprehensive statement on any matter nor relied upon as such. The information and any advice in this publication do not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Therefore you should consider its appropriateness having regard to these factors before acting on it. While the information contained in this publication is based on information obtained from sources believed to be reliable, it has not been independently verified. To the maximum extent permitted by law: (a) no guarantee, representation or warranty is given that any information or advice in this publication is complete, accurate, up-to-date or fit for any purpose; and (b) Financial Decisions nor its employees are in any way liable to you (including for negligence) in respect of any reliance upon such information or advice. March 2022
Contact: Financial Decisions PO Box 484 Mona Vale NSW 1660, T 02 9997 4647, F 02 9997 7407