One Florida-based advisory firm is helping clients transfer their wealth across international borders and preserve it across time.
MAXIMAI Investment Partners of Coral Gables, Fla. takes a holistic approach to maintaining client wealth. The family-oriented, multicultural, boutique firm focuses on managing the wealth of ultra-high-net-worth entrepreneurs from Latin America. The firm specializes in financial planning and relocation support for these international clients and their families.
“Our firm guides clients through many aspects of their relocation even while they are still outside of the country in some cases,” explained Elizabeth van Walleghem, the firm’s CEO and founder. We try to provide clients with as much piece of mind as we can, she said.
A major part of the transition is education. The firm educates families on how to adjust to the elevated cost of living in the U.S., the laws that govern U.S. markets, portfolio changes they can expect, and budgeting techniques to avoid severe over-spending —relatives may be out of work as a result of the transition, van Walleghem explained. People have left careers and businesses in their home countries, and its difficult to go from that to having no income, she said.
“Some transitions are more complex than others. I had a client who was relocating due to the political unrest in his home country of Venezuela,” van Walleghem explained. “He moved himself and three unemployed adult children to the U.S. We created a financial plan that would work with the higher cost of living, and aided his children in finding employment.”
One major priority is to ensure the wealth is sustained far into the future, and that children and grandchildren are well prepared to received it, van Walleghem explained. In addition to transitioning services, the firm offers a comprehensive mentoring program for the children and grandchildren of clients. The program prepares them for maintaining the wealth they will one day inherit.
The process begins when children are still teens in high school and continues while they go through college and enter workforce, van Walleghem said. “They are brought into our offices and immediately begin learning how to add value to their college applications. We send them to seminars in the investment world and they are educated on financial markets, investment strategy, politics, career preparation, and more. Later we assist in career development and help recent grads get jobs and begin a career,” van Walleghem explained.
“We all have heard the story of the next generation going through the family wealth,” she added. “Our firm connects the reality of what it takes to maintain wealth and we begin teaching those values to the family members who will carry on the wealth. We help clients avoid watching their children receive money they haven’t worked for. Our goal is to make sure the next generation is contributing to the wealth instead of depleting it,” said van Walleghem. When the next generation does inherit the wealth, they have the tools necessary to maintain it, she said.
Where money and family are concerned, avoiding conflict is key. When issues do arise, she said, the firm uses extreme patience, engages clients individually, and brings in a family and relationship psychologist, who has been instrumental in helping clients come to a resolution, she said.
Van Walleghem left Merrill Lynch along with Jim Butler III, co-founder of the firm, to begin serving international clients on a broader scale. At Merrill, they said, they had a $2.5 million or $5 million account minimum depending on the client’s location, and a narrow list of 29 countries where they could do business. The two went independent with help from Dynasty Partners in 2016.