Wealth & Estate Planning
Passing it on intact
The hardest part of wealth is rarely making it. It is arranging for it to pass to the next generation, and to the causes you care about, without friction, dispute or unnecessary cost.
A portfolio can be rebuilt; a family relationship, once strained over an estate, often cannot. Wealth & estate planning at Riesant begins with the people involved and the outcome you intend, then works back to the structures, documents and conversations needed to achieve it. We sit alongside your wider portfolio, so succession is considered as part of how your wealth is managed, not added as an afterthought.
Our role is to coordinate. We plan succession, help establish and administer trusts and foundations with our fiduciary partners, and bring order to assets held across several jurisdictions. We do not provide tax or legal advice ourselves; instead we work openly with your own advisers, in Malta and abroad, so that the structure on paper and the reality of your affairs remain aligned over time.
Capabilities
What this includes
Succession & Inheritance Planning
We map how your assets should pass, prepare the family for that transfer and align it with wills, mandates and beneficiary arrangements held with your legal advisers.
Trusts & Foundations
We help establish and administer Maltese and cross-border trusts and foundations through trusted fiduciary partners, suited to holding, protecting and transferring family assets.
Cross-border Tax Coordination
We coordinate the practical detail of your structures with your own tax advisers across jurisdictions, so reporting, residence and timing are handled consistently rather than in isolation.
Philanthropy & Giving
We support considered giving through donor-advised arrangements and foundation structures, so charitable intentions are governed with the same care as the rest of your wealth.
Liquidity & Estate Funding
We plan how an estate will meet its obligations, coordinating with our lending and protection teams where liquidity or cover is needed at the point of transfer.
Family Governance Support
We help families agree how decisions are made and wealth is stewarded, from family charters to next-generation involvement, in concert with our family office service.
Structure follows intention
We start with what you want to happen: who should benefit, in what order, under what conditions, and how much control you wish to retain or release. Only once that intention is clear do we consider whether a trust, a foundation, direct gifting or a combination best serves it. Structures are a means, not an end, and an over-engineered arrangement can create as many problems as it solves.
Where a trust or foundation is appropriate, it is established and administered with our fiduciary partners under a clear fiduciary framework. We coordinate the banking, custody and reporting so that the structure is workable in practice, and we keep it under review as family circumstances, residence and the law evolve.
Working across borders, and across advisers
Riesant serves clients across 23 EU and EEA countries, and wealth rarely respects a single border. Property in one jurisdiction, a business in another and beneficiaries in a third can each carry their own rules on succession, residence and reporting. We bring these threads together into one coherent plan and keep the moving parts coordinated.
We are explicit about the limits of our role. We do not give tax advice; that remains with your own advisers, whom we are glad to work alongside or help you appoint. What we add is continuity and coordination, ensuring the structures, the documents and the day-to-day banking all reflect the same intention across every jurisdiction involved.
Giving with the same discipline
For many clients, passing on wealth includes giving part of it away. We help you do so deliberately, through donor-advised arrangements or dedicated foundation structures, with clear governance over how funds are committed and how impact is reviewed. Philanthropy is treated as a considered part of the plan, integrated with your succession arrangements rather than handled separately.
Questions, answered
Does Riesant provide tax or legal advice?
No. We do not provide tax or legal advice ourselves. We coordinate your planning with your own tax and legal advisers across the relevant jurisdictions, and we can help you appoint suitable advisers where you do not already have them.
Who administers the trusts and foundations?
Trusts and foundations are established and administered through trusted fiduciary partners under a clear fiduciary framework. Riesant coordinates the associated banking, custody and reporting and keeps the structure under review as your circumstances change.
Can you plan for assets and beneficiaries in more than one country?
Yes. Cross-border arrangements are central to this service. We serve clients across 23 EU and EEA countries and bring assets, beneficiaries and advisers in different jurisdictions into a single coordinated plan, working alongside local specialists where required.
Is wealth and estate planning available at every client tier?
Planning support scales with complexity. It is most relevant from Riesant Private upwards, and is closely integrated with our family office service for clients at Riesant Private Wealth and Riesant Family Office, where governance and multi-generational planning take on greater importance.
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You may also consider
Family Office
For principals and families who want their entire balance sheet, across every bank and asset class, brought into a single coherent picture.
Wealth Management
A single relationship, two routes to managing your capital: a discretionary mandate run by our investment committee, or advisory support where the decisions remain yours.
Insurance & Protection
Considered protection for the people, property and possessions that matter — arranged with specialist insurers and held alongside the rest of your relationship.
Begin a conversation
Speak to a relationship manager
Tell us a little about your circumstances and we will arrange an introduction — discreetly, and without obligation.