Just as we go to the doctor periodically to make a complete check-up of our health, the audit or diagnosis allows us to know the state of health of our patrimony. It is one of the most attractive tools of the Multi Family Office.
To learn more about this topic, we spoke with Maxime Berthet, CEO of K&B Family Office, a firm that has been operating in Latin America for more than thirteen years from its headquarters in Panama.
-How does an asset diagnosis begin? Each firm has its own methods and processes. In our Family Office, we start with a private conversation between our client, his advisor and the Family Officer. The objective of this meeting is to understand the needs of our client expressed in his own words. Just like a conversation between a doctor and his or her patient, it is essential to begin building a relationship of trust. After this preliminary meeting, a proposal for an audit of various aspects of wealth management is presented to the client where we identify a need.
-What aspects are analyzed in a wealth diagnosis? Each client is a different case. Generally they are legal, fiduciary, accounting, real estate, fiscal and financial aspects, among others. The important thing is to have the capacity, the expertise and the necessary tools to be able to offer integral solutions for each case.
-What are the advantages of making a patrimonial diagnosis in a Multi Family Office? Continuing with the parallelism of the doctor-patient relationship, when we need to perform several medical tests the most efficient solution is to do them in the same clinic and with the same doctor. A Family Office, like ours, has a multidisciplinary team capable of attending to all the needs in the same place. This allows the client to have a better coordination between the different branches of the patrimonial management.
-Once the preliminary stages are done, what are the next steps?
After the acceptance of the proposal by the client, several meetings with our experts are coordinated in a confidential manner. All the components of the estate are listed, from real estate, bank accounts, investment accounts, to insurance policies, business shares, among others. The objective is to understand how the assets are organized and controlled: for example, if the assets are in personal or corporate title, if the client has a holding company or a legal entity (such as a private interest foundation or trust) that allows the protection of the assets, if there is a will, if he has all the important documents such as wills, policies, corporate shares, etc. in a safe place, if he receives a periodic consolidated report of all the assets he has in different banks, etc. This inventory, through the questions and answers of the client, will be determinant for the success of the path and the achievement of the desired objectives. It is the heart of our work.
At the end of this exercise, the client is presented with a complete diagnosis that resembles a SWOT but applied to an individual, which analyzes the weaknesses and strengths of the assets as well as their opportunities and threats. We complete the diagnosis with our recommendations in each branch of wealth management. It is like our recipe (but readable): a Roadmap that serves as a strategic guide and will allow the client to understand what he will achieve, how, in how long and at what cost.
Maxime Berthet
CEO & Founding partner
To learn more, contact us at:
info@kb-familyoffice.com
August, 2020
