Choosing an investment advisor is one of the few decisions where asking the price can feel impolite and asking who else is being paid can feel worse. In our experience, many careful investors stay quiet for exactly that reason. Daniel Baumgartner and Petra Peters explain why an advisory firm is glad to hear those questions, and what clear answers sound like.
Most households preparing to move between the United States and Germany arrive with two tax advisors who have never spoken to each other: a CPA who knows one system and a Steuerberater who knows the other. Neither was asked about the other country’s treatment of the same accounts, and the portfolio is where the two systems meet. Here’s what changes in a portfolio when residency changes, and why that one conversation belongs before the residency date.
After losing a spouse, advice can arrive from every direction, often with an unnecessary sense of urgency. Beyond keeping essential income and bills moving and addressing genuine legal or tax deadlines, many major investment decisions can wait. Daniel Baumgartner and Petra Peters discuss what deserves early attention, what can usually wait, and why taking time to understand the portfolio is an investment decision in itself.
In many married households, one spouse follows the investments and the other does not. That arrangement may work comfortably for decades until the spouse who understood the portfolio is no longer the one making decisions. Learn why both spouses should understand what they own, why they own it, and who manages it long before that knowledge becomes essential.
Your heirs may know exactly what they're inheriting, but do they actually know how to manage it? Moving the next generation from passive consumers to intentional stewards requires more than just a legally sound will. Here’s what practical preparation looks like.
Global data tells a sobering story: family wealth typically disappears by the third generation. The reasons are rarely about investment returns. More often, wealth erodes because of governance gaps and heirs who inherit complexity without the tools to manage it.