There are many strategies that might assist you in achieving your financial, investment, and estate objectives. Not all work for everyone. The challenge is assessing each in consideration of your individual situation. Part of the firm's function is to help you assess the pros and cons of the various strategies and recommend for implementation those that best suit your desires and circumstances. Here are some basic outlines of a few client cases:

Client Case #1: Executive significantly compensated with stock and options in employer.

The client's objectives:

• Diversify single stock holding.
• Consider the alternatives and decide what to do with the options.
• Donate to charities.
• Shift capital to the children.

The program developed included:

• Developing different disposition plans for ISOs (incentive stock options) and NQSOs (nonqualified stock options).
• Selling stock through either a 10b5-1 sales plan or in open windows; the plan's parameters (such as pricing, volume and duration) were developed with the executive, the company, and the brokerage firm, after giving consideration to a number of factors (e.g., client objectives, disclosure requirements, potential impact on the "street").
• Developing an investment plan for stock sale proceeds.
• Establishing an appropriate charitable entity to which the client donated appreciated stock without paying income taxes on the gains and to preserve personal liquidity.
• Establishing trusts to pass stock to the children over time, at little transfer tax cost (pre-IPO).

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Client Case #2: Business owner who anticipated taking his company public.

The client's objectives:

• Develop sufficient cash flow to maintain his lifestyle.
• Help his children achieve financial security.
• Provide for significant charitable donations.
• Minimize family estate taxes.

The program developed included:

• Establishing trusts to protect the children's privacy and invest the capital until they attained appropriate ages.
• Gifting stock to the children at pre-IPO values (which were anticipated to be at lower values than post-IPO).
• Establishing trusts to pass additional stock to the children over time, at little transfer tax cost (also pre-IPO).
• Acquiring insurance of the right type, amount, and structure to provide estate liquidity and family security until sufficient capital had been put in place to achieve the client's goals.
• Forming a partnership to manage family investments.
• Establishing a charitable remainder trust to allow the client to liquify a portion of his holdings without income taxes on the gains and to generate personal cash flow.
• Forming family charitable foundations (post-IPO).

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Client Case #3: Business owner who anticipated selling the company.

The client's objectives:

• Assess when the value of the company might provide sufficient after-tax capital to provide for long-term security.
• Assist in establishing appropriate business programs (to run the business until ready for sale).

The program developed included:

• Developing business projections under different performance scenarios.
• Estimating the potential value of the business at various future dates.
• Installing appropriate corporate retirement plans.
• Projecting capital needed for the client to have enough to live the desired "retirement" lifestyle.
• Developing employee compensation programs, including for bonuses and incentives.
• Assisting in structuring various elements of the sale.

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Client Case #4: Executive focused on retirement in a 5 to 15 year time frame.

The client's objectives:

• Test affordability of retirement.
• Understand how various corporate benefit programs would work to provide desired security and income.
• Structure estate for benefit of children.
• Provide charitable bequest to university.

The program developed included:

• Analyzing the financial aspects of various corporate retirement programs, including deferred compensation, profit sharing plan, stock plan, pension program, and others.
• Developing long-term projections integrating the timing and amounts of the various plans' benefits and, given work careers of various duration (impacting those benefits), assessing when the executive might retire and maintain his lifestyle, adjusted for inflation.
• Establishing specific short-term savings targets.
• Reallocating retirement plan investments from among the available options.
• Executing a series of estate documents, including a will.
• Selecting the appropriate asset to direct to charity that would reduce family income tax and estate tax liabilities.
• Making proper benefit plan elections and restructuring existing life insurance to reduce estate taxes.

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Client Case #5: Retiring small business owner and spouse.

The client's objectives:

• Develop long-term security capital, to enjoy retirement.
• Pass business to child working in business.
• Balance the business transfer in consideration of another child, who does not work in the business.
• Minimize estate taxes.

The program developed included:

• Developing retirement program to allow the business to fund ongoing lifestyle.
• Structuring a partnership that discounts value of the business related real estate for gift and estate purposes, while maintaining control and cash flow (for additional retirement income security).
• Transferring the business to the child working in the business.
• Developing a formula in the will to balance the bequest of the business to the other child.

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Client Case #6: Widow with a sum of insurance proceeds, unsure of how to invest the capital or how to establish reasonable cash flow and spending parameters.

The client's objectives:

• Allocate the capital for a combination of income and growth.
• Allocate adequate funds for the child's education.
• Determine what combination of capital, earnings, and spending might allow for financial security.

The program developed included:

• Structuring investment capital in a combination of income-producing securities and no-load equity mutual funds.
• Establishing and funding a trust for the child.
• Assisting in various financial decisions, such as: (1) how much capital to allocate to a new home and the related financing, and (2) targeting an appropriate level of ongoing lifestyle spending, to maintain financial security.
• Developing an estate program to pass capital to the child, in trust.

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Client Case #7: Semi-retired couple who inherited investments in a variety of accounts.

The client's objectives:

• Increased cash flow.
• Tax planning.
• Coordinated, easy-to-manage plan.
• Assess various tax strategies and investments suggested by friends and product brokers.

The program developed included:

• Consolidating (1) accounts and (2) investments, for easier management.
• Increasing cash flow by repositioning municipal holdings that were under performing due to the client's low income tax bracket and because many inherited municipals were out-of-state, i.e. greater safety and after-tax yield was available through taxable securities.
• Using professional management for equity programs.
• Declining several inappropriate proposals for a number of reasons, including that the strategy would shift capital out of their control or the product did not fit with their objectives (both of these specific strategy examples were also in conflict with their overall long-term security needs).

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Client Case #8: Owners of a major, privately held corporation.

The client's objectives:

• Maintain the company as a privately held, family enterprise through the next generation.

The program developed included:

• Developing long-range projections to illustrate the growing estate problem and the need to act now to head it off.
• Obtaining the proper types of life insurance, sufficient to provide for near-term transfer tax exposure and to assist in meeting the eventual estate tax liability.
• Establishing trusts to pass company stock to the children over time, at little transfer tax cost.

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