Holding structures for segregating real property and entrepreneurial control functions

Holding structures simplify organizational issues and unified exercise of control over extensive family-owned entrepreneurial assets. Holding structures make it possible to split real ownership rights, entrepreneurial volition, and operational control within a network of companies to several groups of individuals. Powerful holding structures with suitably structured shareowner rights thus contribute to the long-term preservation of family wealth, particularly in the context of long-term generational transition planning.

Advantages derived from international tax treaties

Since the establishment of the European single market, international tax legislation has offered interesting structuring options for conglomerates privately owned by Austrians. A dense web of fiscal treaties such as double taxation agreements or recourse to the so-called Parent-Subsidiary Directive opens up interesting design options that extend beyond the scope of purely national constructs in Austria.

Together with the client’s tax and legal advisors in Austria and elsewhere, swisspartners will develop suitable concepts.

Holding and foundation structures to prevent the deterioration of the family’s wealth after a generation change

At the generational transition, the economic title to entrepreneurial assets is usually passed on to several successors or invested in charitable activities. However, entrepreneurial control is usually expected to remain with the current asset owner during his or her lifetime and upon his or her decease to pass to one or more entrepreneurial successors who may or may not be recruited from outside the family. Holding and foundation structures involving different countries make it possible to plan successorships and secure unified policy decisions, across generations, regarding an Austrian family’s wealth.