Wealthy families rarely hold everything in their own names. They use a few legal building blocks, often stacked on top of each other. The names sound technical, but each one answers a simple question: who owns the asset, who controls it, and who benefits from it. This post explains five of them in plain English. The rules differ from country to country, so treat it as a map, not a plan.
1. The holding company
A holding company is a company that owns shares in other companies instead of running a business itself. Britannica notes that it lets an owner control several businesses “with a minimum amount of investment,” and that its risk is limited to its stake in each one.
Families use holding companies to put scattered assets under one roof and one set of rules. The operating companies keep their own boards and managers, so owning is separated from running. The cost is extra legal, accounting, tax, and reporting work every year.
A holding structure can also separate votes from value. About 94% of the share capital of Robert Bosch GmbH belongs to the Robert Bosch Stiftung, a charitable foundation, while most of the voting rights sit with a separate entity, Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG. At the end of 2025, Novo Holdings, owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, held about 28% of Novo Nordisk’s share capital but about 77% of its votes.
2. The trust
A trust comes from English common law. There are three roles:
- the settlor, who puts assets into the trust;
- the trustee, who holds and manages them;
- the beneficiaries, who receive the benefit.
A trust is not a company. The trustee holds legal title to the assets but must use them for the beneficiaries. The UK government lists the usual reasons for a trust: to control and protect family assets, to provide for someone too young or unable to manage money, and to pass on assets during life or at death. In U.S. terms, a revocable trust can be changed or ended by its creator, while an irrevocable one cannot, and is often designed to keep assets out of the creator’s taxable estate.
Example: the Rockefeller trusts of 1934. On December 18, 1934, John D. Rockefeller Jr. created five irrevocable trusts, one each for five of his children: Abby, John D. 3rd, Nelson, Laurance, and David. The trustee was Chase National Bank, today part of JPMorgan Chase, and a committee could instruct the trustee. It is an early, well-documented example of a family separating control of its wealth from its daily use. (We followed how the fortune was made in our Rockefeller series.)
3. The foundation
Many countries with civil-law systems have no exact equivalent of the trust, and families there often use a private foundation instead. Liechtenstein and Panama are two well-known places to set one up. The key difference: a foundation is a legal person. It has no owners, only beneficiaries, and it owns its assets itself. A council runs it, and a protector can be added to watch over the council.
Example: Onassis. Aristotle Onassis’s son Alexander died in January 1973 after a plane crash. Onassis died in March 1975. In December 1975, in line with his wishes, two foundations were set up in Vaduz, Liechtenstein: a Business Foundation that holds the shipping and other businesses, and a Public Benefit Foundation that is its sole beneficiary. Under the will, the Public Benefit Foundation receives about 40% of the Business Foundation’s yearly net profit, and the rest is reinvested. Accounts differ on the exact split of the estate, but roughly half went to the foundation and the rest to his daughter Christina. (Our Onassis series covers how the fortune was built.)
4. The family partnership or family company
A family limited partnership has two kinds of partners. The general partners, usually the parents, manage the business and carry its liabilities. The limited partners, usually the children or their trusts, own most of the economic value but have few rights to run it. Morgan Stanley describes a typical setup: the parents keep a 1% general-partner stake and give or sell the 99% limited-partner stake over time. Control stays with one generation while value passes to the next. Tax authorities can challenge such structures if they lack a real business purpose.
Example: the Waltons. In 1953, Sam Walton gave each of his four children a 20% stake in the family business, and he and his wife Helen kept 20%. His principle, from his memoir Made in America, was to “give your assets away before they appreciate.” Today Walton Enterprises, LLC, run by its managing members, reports beneficial ownership of about 44% of Walmart’s shares, according to a February 2026 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That figure includes shares held by a related family trust whose votes it controls.
5. The private trust company
Very wealthy families sometimes set up their own private trust company: a company whose only job is to act as trustee for the family’s trusts. Instead of handing control to a bank, the family can put relatives and trusted advisers on the board. Law firm Carey Olsen lists the usual reasons: more say over trustee decisions, a way to train younger family members, the ability to hold unusual assets, and the option to change directors without replacing the trustee. Several U.S. states, and many offshore centers, allow them. They come with their own compliance and reporting duties.
How the pieces fit together
In practice the blocks are stacked. A simplified picture: a trust or foundation sits at the top and protects ownership across generations; below it, a holding company or partnership owns the businesses and investments; alongside it, a family office does the daily work. Each layer answers one question: who owns, who decides, and who benefits.
Secrecy is mostly gone
Structures used to be associated with secrecy. That has changed. Under the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard, the first automatic exchanges of financial account information took place in September 2017 among 49 jurisdictions, with 53 more joining in 2018. The United Kingdom requires most trusts to register with HMRC, and many countries keep registers of who ultimately owns companies. Today’s structures are about governance, succession, and protection more than hiding.
A fair caveat
The same word can mean different things in different countries, and tax treatment varies widely. A structure that works in one place can be ignored or taxed differently in another. Every layer costs money every year in legal work, accounting, filings, and sometimes valuations. A structure set up without a genuine purpose can be challenged. None of the examples above is a template; each was built for one family’s situation and law.
Five lessons to take away
- Separate owning from running. A holding company lets managers manage while the family owns.
- Votes and value can be split. Bosch, Novo Nordisk, and the family partnership all separate control from economic benefit.
- Write down who decides. A trust committee, a foundation council, or managing members: every structure needs a clear decision-maker.
- Every layer has a cost and a reporting duty. Add layers only when they do a job.
- Choose the purpose first, then the structure, then the country. Not the other way around.
Questions to bring to your advisors
Who owns our main assets today, who controls them, and who would control them if we died tomorrow? Which of these structures exist in our countries, and how are they taxed? What would each layer cost us every year? These are questions to bring to your lawyers and tax advisors, not advice.