Entrepreneurs excel at creating and enhancing wealth, but sometimes forget about the importance of protecting it.

Although I am a born optimist, the one area where I always plan for the worst is on providing for the future to secure my family's long-term financial stability. I have worked with many clients (and partners) who live for today and don't want to think about the worst, be this about estate planning, providing for future generations, funding retirement, succession of the business or business failure.

Luckily, I have rarely seen business failure in my client base, but the current crisis is testing even the best and strongest businesses in ways never envisaged (how many businesses had global pandemic, lock-down and large parts of the economy shutting down on their risk register ?).

My old client base will know how often I have "Wealth Protection" on the agenda and I have helped many of them to structure their business and wider wealth with this in mind. Such protection does not have to be complex (unless you want it to be !) and includes:

• Holding and family investment companies to separate trading and non trading assets / investments;

• Partial exits, refinancing and diversification;

• Trusts for future generations;

• A SSAS or SIPPs and ISA's for all the family, especially the children;

• Ensuring don't miss out on valuable reliefs such as Business Property Relief (BPR), Entrepreneurs Relief, Substantial Shareholding Exemption (SSE), EMI, EIS, SEIS etc;

• Having a will (I am still surprised how many wealthy people with complex affairs either don't have one or its years out of date); and

• Family governance and "constitutions" to avoid and manage any future disputes.

If you don't think you have your own and your family's wealth well protected, please feel free to contact me to discuss how I may be able to help.