Zeidman & Co. is one of Israel’s leading firms in the field of family wealth management and private clients.
This complex legal field requires not only multidisciplinary legal knowledge alongside in-depth business and financial understanding, but also a high level of trust and deep familiarity with the clients and their needs, as well as special personal skills and great discretion. Our activity in this field is offered to the firm’s private clients, individuals, family companies and high-net-worth families, to advance their goals in the field of family wealth planning.
We provide our clients with a tailored and comprehensive set of solutions, combining inheritance, family and tax law, with our extensive experience in complex issues in commercial law and corporate law. These solutions include capital planning and preservation, reduction of legal and personal risks, intergenerational transfer, efficient tax planning of corporate holdings and family assets, in Israel and abroad, establishment of trusts, and accompaniment and advice in many other scenarios related to personal and family holdings.
Family wealth management:
Among the complex solutions we provide our clients for managing family wealth:
- Drafting a declaration of family intent
- Formulating family treaties and agreements
- Establishing and accompanying family, Israeli and foreign companies
- Adapting corporate governance to the family’s needs
- Drafting shareholder agreements and international transactions among family members and other parties
- Preparing and building processes for generational change in family businesses
- Ongoing company secretariat and ongoing corporate consulting
- Commercial, finance, business, and more, both at the level of company boards of directors and at the level of ownership.
Keeping the business in the family, from generation to generation:
In order to deal with the challenges and barriers related to transferring a business from generation to generation, Zeidman & Co. offers a broad and sophisticated set of tools for creating various mechanisms that will enable the management and promotion of the business in a way that reflects the wishes of the family members, both in the present and in the future. This delicate work enables future generations to enjoy efficient business management of the family’s assets, while preserving the harmony in the family. From this standpoint, we start the planning, in full understanding and consideration of the personal needs, conditions, and wishes of the various family members and business partners, vis-à-vis the needs of family businesses.
By drafting smart, fair, creative and forward-looking plan, we make sure to limit and reduce any risks of lack of legal harmony vis-à-vis wills, agreements and other arrangements that had already been established over the years, including exposure to creditors and stakeholders, intra-family frictions, or contradictions and loopholes vis-à-vis inheritance laws. This includes:
- Family treaties;
- Family constitutions;
- Prenuptial agreements;
- Corporate bylaws;
- Preparation and training programs for the next generation;
- Effective supervisory mechanisms;
- Establishment of trusts, investment funds and other complex corporate structures;
- Compliance with relevant law and regulation in Israel and abroad.
Additional services our clients are offered, in cooperation and coordination with the representatives of the families, and with great attention and high level of service and discretion, also include the following topics:
- Representation of foreign clients with assets in Israel and assistance in their management;
- Interaction with international lawyers to handle the required procedures;
- Assistance and accompaniment in mapping family assets in Israel and abroad;
- Drafting prospective balancing plans with the help of appropriate evaluation mechanisms;
- Programs for intergenerational transition;
- Treaties and assistance in formulating investment policies;
- Handling inheritance orders or wills In Israel, advising businessmen and individuals on writing and drafting wills;
- Arranging external management support for the family business;
- Outlining effective supervision and control mechanisms – even in cases where the level of interest in the family business has not yet matured in the inheriting generation.
Special complex cases:
When the composition of the stakeholders is of special importance in the family company, we perform a comprehensive examination of the array of agreements within the framework of the family holding company. Accordingly, we anchor limitations on share transfers within the framework of the corporations’ articles of association, in order to preserve the identity and character of the partners even after the retirement of any of the owners.
Trust:
Creating a trust that can protect future heirs from dispositions in future inheritance assets or alternatively serve as a substitute for a “living will.” On the one hand, this service is designed to protect the continued benefit from the family’s assets, and on the other hand, it enables the establishment of guidelines for managing the assets during and after life, while protecting the assets from claims from within and outside the family. Trusts can also be partial or dependent on certain provisions, for example for executing instructions regarding the distribution of profits to family members, and may also include ongoing and comprehensive legal and pre-legal management of assets and complex transactions, in Israel and abroad.
Legal capacity and guardianship:
Drafting a Durable Power of Attorney, advising the appointer, appointee and informed parties; drawing up an expression of desire document; A document of preliminary instructions or power of attorney, according to the Dying Patient Law, and more.
Family wealth management:
- Efficient handling of capital transfer within the framework of family arrangements, intergenerational transfer in the life of the transferor, drafting gift agreements and loan agreements, asset protection from an efficient tax perspective, and more.
- Maintaining continuous contact with family office offices in Israel and abroad, expert consultants and managers with whom the firm operates, and providing legal and paralegal assistance in relation to managing clients’ needs in Israel and abroad.
- Examination of investment offers, purchase and sale of assets and holdings that come from time to time, legal advice and representation vis-à-vis business parties, as well as representation before authorities, portfolio managers and banks, including in voluntary disclosure proceedings.
- Resolution of family disputes regarding the management and distribution of family wealth, disputes in the field of inheritance and family businesses, in which it is of utmost importance to manage and resolve the dispute in a personal and prudent manner.
- Strategic legal support for capital management and business development, while streamlining holdings and investments, accompaniment in international transactions, including in the fields of energy and high-tech.
Durable Power of Attorney:
The department’s clients also benefit from a set of services and advice related to drafting and handling durable power of attorney, a legal document that constitutes an alternative to appointing a legal guardian that requires training and certification of the Guardian General according to the law. The Durable Power of Attorney allows each adult to determine who will handle their affairs in the future, if and when they will not be able to handle on their own. Durable power of attorney can relate to medical matters, such as treatments and hospitalizations, personal matters, such as accommodation, food, clothing, identity of caregivers, or property matters such as bookkeeping, business and assets. It may also include “preliminary instructions” clarifying how a proxy could act in the future, including splitting between several delegates and various matters.
A durable power of attorney is a powerful tool that enables every person, while competent and having an independent choice, to express their wishes regarding future actions to be taken in matters concerning the person, their relatives or third parties, and to make fateful decisions that will shape their future when they can no longer do so on their own – without the intervention of the family court and the Guardian General.
The durable power of attorney and preliminary instructions are prepared in our office, broadcast online and submitted to the Administrator General, where they are checked for integrity and confirmed.
