Globally the Turnstone Group offers fiduciary, corporate management and family advisory services to wealthy families, individuals and institutional clients across the world. The Turnstone Group was established in 1999 as an international fiduciary service provider. Since its inception, Turnstone, with a combination of skills in the finance, legal and accounting fields, offers bespoke private wealth, trustee, corporate management and related services to institutional and private clients.
Turnstone Botswana specifically provides fiduciary and independent trusteeship solutions for trusts in Botswana. Botswana remains one of Africa’s wealthiest and most stable countries. Turnstone Botswana can assist clients to enter into Africa as well as African clients to expand to Europe and the rest of the world.
Working as a member of the Turnstone Group, Turnstone Botswana offers the following services:
- Family Advisory Services
- Succession Planning
- Estate and Tax Planning
- Administration of Trusts
- Local Company Services and International Trust Solutions.
Our team of professionals extend the botho, a Setswana term synonymous to humanity, kind-heartedness, compassion, empathy and benevolence to take a long-term approach, working hand in hand with clients, by offering comprehensive solutions and sound advice on both a personal and business level.
Our ethos ‘Trust Today, Trust Tomorrow’ makes us the partner of choice for private clients and families – helping them to structure, grow and protect their assets from one generation to the next.
Services
Family Advisory Services and Succession Planning
- Family and business succession planning.
- Multi-generational family planning structures, charitable planning and private foundations.
- Wealth preservation and estate planning.
- Testamentary trusts (a trust created in a will).
- Establishment and registration of Inter Vivos trusts.
- Establishment and registration of charitable trusts.
- Legal audits of trust deeds.
- Valuation of business interests.
Estate and Tax Planning
- Structuring of clients’ financial matters in respect of wills, property, investments, insurance, income tax and estate duty.
- Evaluation of existing estate planning structures.
- Assistance with the drafting of wills.
- Drafting of agreements related to estate planning and trusts i.e. loan agreements, buy and sell agreements and donation agreements.
Company Services
- Formation of local and international companies.
- Facilitating board meetings including the preparation of board packs.
- Preparation of company resolutions.
- Drafting of agreements related to company structures i.e. loan agreements, buy and sell agreements and shareholders agreements.
Administration of Trusts
- Accepting appointment as independent trustee on trusts.
- Providing comprehensive administration, including the administration on charitable trusts.
- Holding trust related documents in safe custody.
- Drafting of resolutions and all related agreements.
- Facilitating regular trustee meetings.
International Trust Solutions
- Establishment and administration of offshore trusts, foundations and companies.
- International Estate Planning.
- Wealth preservation and protection.
Turnstone Botswana recognises each client has unique objectives and needs. We undertake a tailor-made process ranging from the initial planning and formation, to the implementation and day-to-day management of the optimal structure for the clients’ benefit.
Family Advisory Services
Turnstone Botswana offers specialised and personalised services which include family advisory, trustee, estate, philanthropic and retirement planning services. We recognise that families have an identity and functions distinct from the businesses they own. Families need to define their identity, by formulating their vision, values and goals separate from the vision, values and goals of the business. Our family advisory services aim to guide families by defining a purpose driven vision, for the family unit, using the Vision Leadership Model©.
The composition of current and potential future investments, including the family business, need to be taken into account for the purpose of establishing a comprehensive family plan. Our team of experts work in conjunction with the family’s attorneys, financial advisors and accountants, thereby designing and implementing comprehensive private wealth structures, using a multi-disciplinary process and drawing on expertise from across the Turnstone Group.
In joining Turnstone Botswana, you have taken the first step towards establishing ‘Trust for Generations’, thereby ensuring your family’s financial security as a legacy. The final result is a structured family establishment with a clearly defined purpose which is supported by the family’s principles, values and various family corporate governance structures, such as a family constitution.
Estate and Tax Planning
Every individual should have a last will which is reviewed and updated on a regular basis. Estate planning preserves, enhances and protects assets during the lifetime of the individual and ensures the most effective and beneficial distribution thereof in accordance with the individual’s wishes.
Estate planning determines a snapshot of net worth, including assets, liabilities and income. The individual should take financial, economic, social and psychological needs into consideration for himself, his family and his heirs. A carefully structured and written Last Will and Testament can meet many of the individual’s goals – including reducing estate duty liability. Estate planning must also involve succession planning of an individual’s business, where applicable. Plans should also be in place as to who will succeed him, who may inherit his shares on his death, whether the business should be sold, or who will have the right to income, generated by the business.
Estate planning may also include the use of trusts, which enable the seamless administration of an individual’s estate on death, bringing potential tax benefits. Trusts also enable clients to defer the distribution of their estates on death and for the wealth to be utilised by successive generations. Due to the fact that Botswana has a source basis of taxation, we ensure that clients are aware of the implications to position structures in Botswana.
Trust and Independent Trustee Services
Trusts are one of the most flexible instruments available in the financial services landscape and are considered by many to be essential in creating various strategies for asset protection, estate planning and succession planning. As a specialist in the trust, corporate and generational wealth transfer sectors, Turnstone Botswana provides services to protect and structure assets and wealth. Over the last decade, the Turnstone Group have established a solid reputation in the financial services sector, through offering clients expert advice and reliable services they can trust. We assist and enable clients to create the most important aspect of their lives, a lasting legacy.
A Trust’s flexible construction and privacy attributes makes it an ideal solution for the efficient structuring of a range of complex personal and corporate situations. The flexibility and protection afforded by a trust are such that they have become an important part of long-term wealth and corporate management planning for many families and organisations. The Turnstone Group has been acting as an independent trustee for more than a decade.
Internationally, it is advised that trusts have an independent trustee. In Botswana, professionals such as accountants and attorneys have acted as independent Trustees on inter vivos, testamentary and charitable trusts in their personal capacities.
Acting as a Trustee can be a risky and daunting position if you consider the following:
- in the event the trust is deemed a ‘sham’, independent trustees run the risk of incurring personal liability, because the professional trustee failed to manage the trust in a manner whereby ‘enjoyment and control are functionally separated’ as stated in the Parker court case in South Africa;
- an appointment as trustee ensures that such trustees take the full responsibility of trusteeship; and
- the administrative burden on the Independent Trustee is cumbersome.
Turnstone Botswana act as an independent corporate trustee for inter vivos, testamentary and charitable trusts. It is with confidence a family can appoint Turnstone Botswana as an independent trustee for its fiduciary affairs.
Company Management
Turnstone Botswana, with Botswana partners delivers a seamless one-stop administration service attending to, inter alia:
- company formations;
- facilitating board meetings including the preparation of board packs;
- preparation of company resolutions; and
- drafting of agreements related to company structures i.e. loan agreements, buy and sell agreements and shareholders agreements.
International Structuring Services
Turnstone Botswana provides formation and management of international and on-shore solutions, capitalising on jurisdictional advantages and regulatory frameworks. We provide assistance with establishing trusts, foundations and company formation services in most jurisdictions worldwide including the Isle of Man, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Mauritius, Botswana, Namibia and others.
Turnstone Botswana works with specialist advisors and refers any specific tax concerns to our panel of external consultants. Adherence to the Botswana tax regulations are a non-negotiable requirement for doing international business.
International Private Wealth
The challenges regarding the preservation, growth and orderly distribution of the family’s wealth has risen to new heights. Receiving the best advice is of utmost importance due to increasing complications on international investments, taxation, structuring ownership of worldwide assets and your financial affairs. Working with a family’s professional advisors, we can put legal structures in place which is best suited to your needs.
Many Africans share concerns over their country’s political and economic future. Turnstone Botswana provides a solution where we can assist clients in holding a portion of their wealth internationally, particularly via an offshore trust or other appropriate structure to ensure the wealth remains secure and available for current and future generations. Certain jurisdictions from which Turnstone Botswana can provide such services, e.g. the Isle of Man, are highly stable, independent and well-regulated, all of which help to ensure peace of mind.
Specific services we provide are:
- Estate planning and personal risk management.
- Advice on legal structuring.
- Trust, foundation and company formulation and administration.
- Establishment of bank and investment accounts.
- Provision of Family Office Services.