Succession Planning for a Business-Owning Family

The family had built substantial wealth through a portfolio of operating businesses in agriculture and logistics across East Africa. The founding generation was approaching retirement, but no formal succession plan existed. Business interests, investment accounts, and real estate were held in personal names with no separation between operational and passive wealth.

The family needed a structure that would allow the founders to step back, protect assets from operational risk, ensure a smooth transfer to the next generation, and formalise how decisions about the family's combined wealth would be made going forward.

Hament designed a phased succession and estate structuring plan that separated, protected, and transitioned the family's wealth.

• Asset separation and ring-fencing — We worked with the family's legal counsel to separate operating business interests from passive investment wealth, placing each into distinct holding structures to insulate personal and family capital from business liabilities.
• Trust and foundation setup — A family trust was established to hold passive investment assets, with clearly defined beneficiaries, distribution rules, and a governance charter to guide future decisions across generations.
• Cross-border estate tax mapping — We analysed inheritance and estate tax exposures across Tanzania and two offshore jurisdictions where assets were held, identifying steps to reduce transfer costs and avoid forced liquidation scenarios.
• Heir onboarding programme — A structured education series was developed for the next generation, covering investment principles, fiduciary responsibilities, and the governance framework, to prepare them for eventual stewardship.
• Phased transition timeline — A five-year transition calendar was created with defined milestones for transferring decision-making authority, updating legal documents, and gradually shifting portfolio oversight to the younger generation under advisory supervision.

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