America's Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies 2024 - 7

2024 AMERICA'S MOST ADVISOR-FRIENDLY TRUST COMPANIES
them new accounts, they're happy to
share.
Trusts can be set up to split the
responsibilities and the fees. An
advisor can go on managing
the investments and charging
management fees.
And once the paperwork is processed,
that relationship can remain in place
for a very long time. From crisis to
crisis, you have continuity on your
side. So do your clients.
The landscape hasn't changed much.
The Fed's aggressive policy took a
lot of debt-driven consolidation plans
off the table. This year might be a
different story.
Meanwhile, more nimble competitors
create pressure for commodity
operators to stay relevant. There are a
lot of " copycat " trust companies on the
map these days. You won't see any of
them in these pages. We're about the
best and the brightest, the providers
with what it takes to embrace future
opportunities.
These are the disrupters. This is the
industry of tomorrow. And whatever
happens beyond the current moment,
these are the partners you want to
have on your side as you and your
clients face the future.
People in high-tax " blue " states are
already transferring funds to traditional
low-tax trust havens like Nevada,
South Dakota and Delaware-not to
mention up-and-coming states like New
Hampshire, Tennessee and Wyoming.
And the new rules around passthrough
businesses are already driving
incorporation in those states. Tying
trust to those entities is a natural
conversation. We're going to be
spending a lot more time next year
weighing the balance of jurisdictional
gravity.
The election doesn't change this
calculus much. Talk about wealth
taxes in California and elsewhere
will accelerate capital flight to places
like Texas, Florida and, yes, Nevada.
As tax cuts roll back, the struggle
to find cheaper havens is already
intensifying.
The Supreme Court has now ruled
that states can't tax income out-ofstate
trusts pay local residents. But as
money hops borders from California
to Nevada and from New York to
Tennessee, people will keep testing the
limits of operating in the right place.
Clear winners and losers will emerge.
We already `rank` trust companies in
Delaware and Nevada are eager to
see if New York Private Trust and
relative newcomer Peak Trust retain
their crown there. While polling on
Nevada and other jurisdictions is at an
earlier stage, those results will also be
illuminating.
THE RIGHT PARTNER IS
CRUCIAL
In the meantime, advisors who can
recommend the right solutions have a
competitive edge on those who have,
for all practical purposes, decided to
bury their heads in the sand.
After all, we're all here to capture
assets from rivals while protecting
our own best clients from ambitious
interlopers and from mortality itself.
Odds are good your best clients want
to integrate trusts into their planning. If
you don't cooperate with that, you're
not part of their long-term solution.
They'll find someone else. And when
they're gone, their heirs will drift toward
their own choice of advisors unless
you've found a way to lock in the
relationship for generations to come.
We don't know a lot about what the
future will bring, but that's a guarantee.
Lock in what you can while you have
it. Otherwise life will take it away.
7
Of course the trust industry doesn't
have a great reputation among
advisors. A lot of established names
in the field use their relationships with
trust grantors and beneficiaries to
prospect more money away from the
families and ultimately their advisors.
That's why we concentrate on
companies that explicitly take another,
higher road. They don't invest in inhouse
wealth management operations
of their own.
They're content to administer the
trusts and let the advisors who built
the accounts go on running the
money. They're dynamic and offer
more than cookie-cutter solutions.
They're the future.
The Baby Boomers at the backbone
of most advisors' books of business
are largely retired and moving toward
the grave year by year. Fixtures of the
ultra-high-net-worth world are moving
on . . . the last of the Vanderbilts, one
of the Koch brothers, billions of dollars
are transferring now.
When they die, their heirs tend to take
the money to new venues-robot
platforms and so on. When that money
passes on through a trust, it's the trust
that decides who manages the money
and collects the fees.
That's why the establishment covets
these accounts and why advisors in the
know are happy to suggest trusts to
clients who need a stronger estate plan.
After all, trusts exist because they
provide advantages. Freedom from
estate tax-where and when it's a
problem-is only the tip of the iceberg.
It's about relationships.
TRUST BASICS
A trust is a legal instrument used to
administer assets transferred from
one party (the grantor) on the behalf
of others (the beneficiaries). The trust
can own property and investment
capital to provide income to pay out to
America's Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies 2024

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