Family business succession & estate structure advisory · Chicago
Trusts, partnerships, voting shares, buy-sell agreements. Built over decades by different advisors, each looking at their own piece. Nobody is looking at the whole thing. We map how it actually works, what each piece costs to keep, and what can change.
Every advisor sees their piece. Nobody is looking at the whole thing.
Your family's attorney, CPA, wealth advisor, insurance agent, banker, and trustee are each doing their job well. The problems live in the space between those jobs, where nobody is paid to look.
Wealth rarely breaks from bad advice. It breaks from disconnected advice. Read why we built Capital Architecture™
It's never the structure that brings them in. It's the moment.
Nobody wakes up wanting a structure map. Something happens first. That's when the trusts and agreements stop being paperwork in a drawer and start making decisions for you.
Major Liquidity Event
A buyer wants the company, or the building under it. The number is real. Then the questions nobody has answered show up all at once: which entity is actually selling, who has to sign, how the money moves through two trusts and a partnership, and what the tax bill looks like before anyone says yes. Selling isn't the hard part. Knowing what you're selling is.
Retirement
The founder is ready to slow down, but his income, his control, and a big part of who he is are all tied to the company. Everyone is being polite about it. The real question is what he lives on once the paycheck stops, and whether the business can keep paying it without starving the people running it.
Exit & Succession
The one in the business wants to own it. The two outside want to be treated fairly. Fair and equal aren't the same thing, and the documents don't say which one Mom and Dad meant. Left alone, this turns into a question of who gets angry first.
Inheritance
When a parent passes, the family learns the whole structure at once, in a conference room, from people they've never met. Trustees change, votes shift, and some deadlines start running whether anyone understands them or not. It's the worst time to learn and the most expensive time to guess.
Legacy
At some point the money is handled and the question becomes what it's for. A foundation, a donor-advised fund, the grandkids' education, a family that still talks to each other in twenty years. Good intentions usually get bolted onto a structure that was built for tax, not meaning.
Stock Redemption
A shareholder wants to be bought out, and the buy-sell agreement was signed twenty years ago with a formula nobody has looked at since. The company can redeem him, the family can buy him out, or the fight can start. How it's structured changes the tax, the cash flow, and who controls what's left.
Divorce
A marriage ends and the family business is suddenly on the table. What's marital and what's separate, what the shares are worth, and whether an ex-spouse could end up with a say in the company all come down to how things were set up years ago, usually by someone who never pictured this day. The attorneys handle the divorce. Someone still has to show them what the structure actually is.
A Business in Trouble
Fix it, sell it, or close it. Those are the only three choices, and every owner at the table has a different one in mind. The structure decides who actually gets to make the call, whose name is on the personal guarantees, what happens to the family members on payroll, and whose money goes in if it's going to survive. Waiting is a choice too, and usually the most expensive one.
Two ways in
Fixed fees, quoted before we start. No retainer and no commitment to anything after.
Real families. Details changed.
Each one shows where the family was stuck and the path we laid out. Some are still in progress, so we show the problem and the plan, not a promised ending.
Your client stays your client.
When the family can't follow the structure, every meeting runs long and decisions stall. We do the translation: the map, the numbers, and the family conversation. You keep the drafting, the fiduciary role, and the relationship.
A small team. You'll know every name.
Only the people working on your engagement see your documents, and you'll know who they are before we start. Outside specialists are brought in only with your approval, and see only what their part requires.
What people ask before they call
If your question isn't here, ask it on the first call. There's no charge for that conversation.
We settle that in writing before any work starts. The client can be one family member, a couple, or the family as a whole, and everyone involved knows which one it is.
If you're the one who called, we work for you. If the rest of the family joins later, we update the agreement so nobody is guessing who we represent.
What we won't do is quietly advise two family members whose interests pull in different directions. If that happens, we'll say so plainly and help whoever needs separate advice find it.
No. A first conversation is confidential. Nothing you tell us goes to a sibling, a parent, or anyone else without your okay. If the family later becomes the client, we agree up front on what gets shared with whom.
No. They keep their roles and their relationship with you. We make sure they're working from the same picture, and we hand each of them a clear list of what's theirs to do.
Yes. We work with a network of CPAs, estate attorneys, and financial planners, and we can introduce you when a change makes sense. Our CPAs can work under your engagement with us. Attorneys and financial planners always work with you directly, under their own agreements, because their licenses require it. Either way, you'll know up front who does what, how each is paid, and whether we're compensated for the introduction. You're never required to use anyone we suggest.
No. We don't draft legal documents or practice law, and we're not a registered investment adviser. We coordinate with the licensed professionals who do that work, including your own.
The Map is a flat fee between $3,500 and $7,500, quoted before we start, depending on how many entities, trusts, and family members are involved. If you want ongoing help afterward, we quote that up front too, either hourly or as an annual retainer.
Most maps take three to six weeks. The biggest variable is how quickly documents come in.
It's normal. Half the job is finding out what's actually out there. We'll send a short list and work with your attorney, CPA, trust company, and anyone else who holds paperwork to track down the rest.
No. Many engagements start with one person who wants to understand what they're part of. Family meetings happen when they'd help, not by default.
We follow a written privacy and security policy. Documents move through secure, encrypted channels, multi-factor authentication is required wherever it's available, and access is limited to the people working on your engagement. Tax information is handled under the IRS rules that govern tax preparers. Read our full Privacy & Security Policy.
Yes. We're based in Chicago and work with families and owners in several states, mostly by video, with in-person meetings when it matters.
You should, for the drafting. Your attorney can tell you whether your documents are legally sound. We test whether they work with the business, the tax returns, the insurance, and the bank, under the events that actually happen. Then your attorney gets a clear list of what to change.
Nothing, unless you want it to. Some families take the map to their own advisors and never need us again. Others ask us to stay on and coordinate the changes. On the business side, our team can also do the work directly through Golden Tree Tax & Accounting: entity changes, owner pay, returns, and books. If you already have a CPA you're happy with, that work stays with them.
Start with one conversation.
Bring what you have: the documents, the questions, or just the feeling that nobody's explained it. We'll tell you plainly whether a map would help.