Trustee services

Estate planning and administration

Trust set up, estate planning and administration and charitable trusts: for the people and causes you care for most.

Protecting and providing for those we care about is something we all want to do. Expressing your love by helping your children or grandchildren. Giving money to causes that make the lives of complete strangers better. What could be better?

That’s why people are often surprised about their estate planning conversations with Perpetual. Sure the conversation might cover trusts, wills, tax and charitable foundations. But what it’s really about is people. Who can you help? How can you help? What can you leave behind that makes someone else’s life a little bit better?

Your Perpetual adviser can connect you to an appropriate legal firm to draft your will and our internal team of experts can manage the administration, legal, taxation and investment issues involved in helping the people and causes you care for.

So you can do good – even after you’re gone.

Are your children ready to manage the family wealth?

Passing wealth to the next generation comes with risk. In fact, over 70% of intergenerational wealth transfers fail¹. That is, significant family wealth is often squandered within a generation or two.

The key reason? With no planning or preparation, family members have competing priorities over the family wealth and are unable to manage their new responsibilities. Perpetual has wealth education and mentoring services to help your family understand the value of money – and the values which created your family’s wealth.

Tax - doing the right thing

A key element of estate planning is tax management. That means paying the tax you should pay, but structuring trusts, wills, bequests and charitable gifts so more of your money goes to the people and causes that matter to you. Whether that’s your spouse/partner, children, grandchildren or a charity or Not-for-profit.

Find out the capital gains tax rules that apply to common types of assets inherited as part of an estate.

Succession planning for my business

Given what you’ve put in, don’t you deserve the best possible outcome when you exit your business? A business succession plan can help protect your interests and help whoever takes it over enjoy a smooth transition.

It can ensure the wealth you’ve worked so hard to create is invested strategically to secure your future lifestyle, transferred to your family tax-effectively, passed to family members in accordance with your wishes, and put to work supporting a charity or cause.

At Perpetual, our investment, accounting and Family Office teams can help you manage the family issues and compromises you may have to make to achieve these multiple aims. Find out more on our business advisory services.

Giving to organisations and causes

You know the causes closest to your heart, but do you know the most effective ways to support them?

You can donate to charities on an ad-hoc basis. You can arrange regular payments to a not-for-profit aligned to your goals. Or you can give strategically – by taking into account taxation, the impact of your giving, when and how you give and whether you want your family to be involved.

See how you can structure your giving in a way that aligns with your worldview and has maximum impact.

Find out more on philanthropy with impact.

Managing an estate

It happens to many of us as we get older. Someone trusts us to manage their estate. Sometimes it’s a lifelong friend. Sometimes it’s a loved one. Either way navigating through the process and looking after the interests of beneficiaries is an important responsibility, a significant workload and one you must undertake while dealing with grief. If you appoint Perpetual as the executor, our experts will help ensure the terms of the will are carried out; assume the legal and tax responsibilities and keep your beneficiaries informed at every step.

Thanks to a 130-year trustee heritage, Perpetual can offer you deep expertise in estate planning, trusts, philanthropy, tax management and much more. If you have any questions about receiving or leaving an inheritance, visit our inheritance page.

Client stories

Perri McCarthy

Perpetual and Fordham client since 2016

Divorced, remarried and now focused on growing her business, pharmacist Perri McCarthy’s life had changed dramatically. She turned to Perpetual for estate planning advice to protect her children and her business and to make sure she “stayed in control”.

Peter Falvey

Perpetual and Fordham client since 2008

Africa holds a special place in philanthropist Peter Falvey’s heart so he asked Perpetual to help him structure his giving in a way that made a real difference in some of the world’s poorest countries. Here’s how it happened.

Bill Cook

Perpetual and Fordham client since 1958

Bill Cook is the third generation of his family to be involved in the family business – Williams Batters, a real estate agent located in South Yarra, Melbourne.

Like many successful business owners, Bill is constantly facing the challenge of integrating his decisions around business and personal finances. Another layer was added to that set of challenges as he looked to protect the legacy of his business, provide for his children and secure his own future.

The successful solution to Bill’s challenge was a Family Office structure – a powerful and integrated suite of services delivered by Perpetual and Fordham, a specialist part of Perpetual.

Bill Cook Perpetual Client thumbnail.jpg

MANAGING WEALTH
Planning For Retirement
Giving & Passing On Wealth

MANAGING WEALTH
- Strategic financial advice
- Investment advice & management
- Income, savings & debt management
- Personal Insurance
- Tax & accounting
- Health & personal injury support
- Family office
- Property management
Exceptional financial advice to protect and grow your wealth. That’s our enduring commitment to you backed by an investment philosophy that has stood the test of time.
Planning For Retirement
- Retirement and succession planning
- Superannuation & pension management
- Power of attorney & Lifestyle assistance
A post-work paradise takes careful planning. We can help you to structure your finances effectively and create an investment portfolio that protects your wealth without jeopardising your lifestyle.
Giving & Passing On Wealth
- Charitable giving & philanthropy
- Trust setup & management
- Wills, estate planning & executorial services
From the creation of your estate plan through to tax-effective giving structures, our team can help you to create a legacy for the people and causes closest to your heart.

Protect what you treasure most in life

Wills, estate planning & execution

Trust set-up and management

Charitable giving and family philanthropy

Preparing the next generation

Our financial advisers - in their own words

“In estate planning discussions with a client, we discussed various philanthropic options and decided that an Endowment would allow them to give in a more structured way. Their nominated charities would receive funding in perpetuity through the contributions to the Endowment from their estate.” – Rachelle Arranz, Senior Financial Adviser, Perpetual Private, ACT

“Intergenerational wealth transfer is an area which is becoming increasingly important. I work with clients to make sure their estate has the right legal and financial structures in place and, when the time comes, the next generation are set up for financial success. With over 30 years’ experience in investments, retirement and estate planning, I understand that no two families are the same. I love getting to know my clients and creating solutions for their own unique circumstances.” – Lucy Salaris Senior Financial Adviser, Perpetual Private, VIC

Meet the team

Mathew Gault

Senior Adviser NSW

Rachelle Arranz

Specialist Medical Senior Adviser ACT

Andrew Parker

Partner, Private Clients SA

Richard Van Der Merwe

Lead Partner

Melbourne BBus FCA FBA Specialist Accredited Adviser.

Sharon Parker

Lead Partner

Melbourne B Bus (Acc), CA

Your best interests at heart

Your estate planning will often involve putting money to work for other people and you’re going to need expert investment management to ensure that money achieves your goals.

Let’s have a look at what that means:

When you set up a trust to benefit your partner, children or extended family, you need to ensure the money is invested so it achieves your goals. You might want the money to generate income straight away. Or you might want it to grow over time so that when your child/grandchild reaches a certain age they have substantial capital in the trust. That will influence your investment strategy and choices.
You might set up a charitable trust and need to make sure the investment strategy is aligned. Do you want it to throw off regular cash for the charity? Or grow over time until it’s reached the size where distributions have a real impact?
When investing the proceeds of a business sale you might need an investment approach that replaces the income the business used to generate. Or want to grow that capital and pass it on to your family or charity.

Whatever your objective, expert, strategic investment management will give you the best chance of achieving your goals. Our advisers, trust managers and investment specialists will ensure the trusts, foundations and portfolios you set up are structured to meet your specific needs and that all the assets we invest in on your behalf pass Perpetual’s stringent quality investment filters.

Find out more about our investment philosophy.

Perpetual is an ASX-listed, diversified financial services company which has been serving Australians since 1886 when it was established as a trustee company by a group of businessmen including Sir Edmund Barton, later to be Australia’s first Prime Minister. That trustee heritage – and the culture it created around putting clients first – is what makes Perpetual unique.

We have been earning the trust of our clients for more than 130 years and pride ourselves on our long-standing client relationships – some of which span five generations.

Trust is earned, every day.

Our approach to estate planning starts with a deep dive into your aims. It’s very rarely a sad or difficult conversation and more often a discussion of what really matters to you. When it comes to family that can involve immediate family, extended families or blended families. It could involve discussions about your business and succession planning. And it often involves expert insight into how you can put your wealth to work for charities.

It is at this point that our trustee heritage and the breadth of the Perpetual service becomes important.

We can offer you inhouse access to specialists in investing (across all asset classes), superannuation, estate administration, philanthropy, business advisory services and tax and accounting. We can also connect you with one of our partner law firms who can assist in drafting your will. Everything you need to execute an estate plan that balances your needs and wants and those of your family.

Those ambitions may change over time - so your adviser will conduct regular reviews with you to make sure your plan continues to reflect your wishes – and adapts to changes in the investment markets and legislation.

Take your first step - contact us on 1800 631 381

Or please submit the form below and a specialist adviser will contact you. 97%* of Perpetual Private clients are happy with the quality of their financial advice. *Perpetual Net Promoter Score Survey (research conducted by Woolcott Research).

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