Two questions inevitably confront investors and entrepreneurs once they achieve a certain level of personal financial success: how to protect their wealth and who else should benefit from it.
Increasingly, the solution they opt for is to set up a trust, a device that provides legal clarity, an agreed approach to managing assets and investments, and certainty about succession planning.
Also important for many high-net-worth individuals are the terms and conditions that can be structured in line with the principal's - or settlor's - express instructions and remain flexible enough to incorporate future changes, and allow continuing involvement in investment-related decisions.
'The first issue for us is to identify what clients want and then, in practical terms, what they actually need,' says Michael Low, Bank Sarasin's Singapore-based head of trust and fiduciary services in Asia.
He notes that this can involve lengthy discussions over months, or even years, covering topics such as how best to provide for children, who will receive what and which assets to place in the trust.
These conversations often reveal unsuspected layers of complexity. Family issues may come to the surface; the client may have to clarify personal views on things such as philanthropy and expectations of others; and future control of continuing business concerns can lead to detailed debate.