Ownership And Governance Structures

First Published in Globe Law and Business: Private Trust Companies, August 2020

This chapter will explore aspects of private trust companies, but as necessary background will first address formation of, and the various ownership structures employed for, US and non-US private trust companies.

1. Introduction

In the United States, a private trust company is a perpetual entity that is owned by a single family and created specifically to serve as that family's institutional fiduciary, whether as the executor of a family member's probate estate, as a guardian or attorney-in-fact for an incompetent family member or, most commonly, as the trustee for trusts created by or for those family members. Similar, but not identical, is a private trust company in the offshore context – a perpetual company that is formed generally for the sole purpose of acting as trustee for a specific trust or a limited class or group of related trusts. These can be trusts used in the