Veritas Legal’s Abhijit Joshi on the Evolution of Estate Planning for Asia’s HNWIs
Abhijit Joshi of Veritas Legal
Jul 30, 2019
Abhijit Joshi is an eminent Mumbai-based lawyer, who in 2015, founded Veritas Legal – a firm that today boasts of 7 partners and approximately 50 lawyers, and offers a growing depth of expertise in a number of key areas. Abhijit and his colleagues have developed their private client practice as they are keenly focused on the succession planning arena in India. Abhijit met with Hubbis recently in Mumbai to articulate his vision of private wealth in the country, and discuss why Veritas is ideally positioned as a trusted adviser to many of India’s wealthiest families.
Abhijit Joshi is the Founding Partner of Veritas Legal (Veritas), and has a noteworthy career spanning close to 25 years. Abhijit has been recognised in the “A-List: India’s top 100 lawyers” by India Business Law Journal, and has been ranked in Band-1 for Corporate/M&A by the prestigious Chambers & Partners Asia Pacific Guide for several years. In only a few years since he founded Veritas in 2015, the firm has secured a position in the RSG Top 40 Indian Law Firms.
“Our team brings together the experience of lawyers” Abhijit reports. “We aim to provide clear client-focused legal advice and solutions based on an in-depth knowledge of the legal, regulatory and commercial environment in India. Our clients benefit from our experience, blended with the personal attention and streamlined advice that we provide.”
Seeking trusted adviser status
He explains that the firm seeks long-term relationships with clients, and aims to offer dedicated and focused services, with the firm’s partners actively involved in every aspect of the projects. “We aim to become one of India’s leading boutique law firms, leveraging our experience to offer high-quality specialised advice,” Veritas claims.
A historical perspective
“The Indian economic revolution is a little more than 25 years young, beginning as it did in 1991. So, that is not long, and in that time, economic growth and private wealth accumulation have both been dramatic,” Abhijit observes. “The Indian entrepreneur has been so very busy creating wealth in that time, but now as wealth is so vast, people have started worrying about retaining that wealth, so they started consulting experts, hence the genesis of the private client practice.”
As Indian HNWIs become more mature, and even wealthier, more existential questions come to mind, Abhijit explains. “They become concerned about the future, and focus on estate planning, the implications for tax on assets they will leave behind,” he explains. “More and people have become concerned about the possible reintroduction of inheritance tax (“IHT”), which was abolished decades ago but that might return. In short, as people shift their focus from making wealth to safeguarding it, the private client practice has grown apace.”
Abhijit expands on this, adding that India is witnessing the evolution of the trusted advisor.
“As a firm, we are on a positive trajectory on the trusted advisor proposition,” he reports. “We have been helping a number of the larger business groups and families in relation to their estate planning, trust formations, family arrangements, the perpetuity of businesses, wills, testaments, and so forth. So, we are moving deeper into the trusted advisor space.”
He explains that many of the wealthier Indians have become non-resident Indians and moved to the West, meaning that they generally have complex trust and other structures. “Their fear is the reintroduction of estate duties, that is the flavour currently for moving forward on estate planning,” he reports. “It is all about tax minimisation or optimisation, as the general clamour to see IHT increases.”
Asking the tough questions
To offer the best advice, Abhijit often must ask the difficult questions about family, future generations, as well as about hopes and fears.
“Does the younger generation have what it takes to run the family businesses?” he cites, as an example. “Which of the potential heirs does the client want to run them? Do they need external professional management coming in? What is their concept of wealth preservation? What does the spouse want, or plan to do? How complex is your business structures? What about leverage? Environmental issues?”
In short, Abhijit observes that the younger generations might be less willing on many levels to handle those businesses which the previous generations handled. He also notes there is a strong drive for cleanliness in business, whereas, in the past, it was a very different landscape in India.”
Bespoke solutions
As to solutions, Abhijit remarks that one size does not fit all families, and there is often considerable room for disputes or disagreement amongst family units which, of course, are then related to many family units as the children, and grandchildren, marry and have their own families.
“This,” says Abhijit, “means that we are busy in a variety of areas, including family constitutions, succession planning, trust formations and other key areas that provide solutions or structures for these clients. Nobody wants to go through the Indian courts, it takes years and can become a nightmare for everybody concerned, and the outcome is seldom satisfactory to everyone in the family.”
Abhijit cites the example of a family with younger children not yet ready to go into the business, or perhaps not capable or willing to do so. “We want to avoid conflict,” he explains, “so we will head towards a professional management solution for the businesses, whereby the younger family members get the money they want, and more perhaps, and that way they do not need to interfere in the engine of wealth creation. That way, the business can operate on best practices, and the younger generations can have whatever they want or expect. Or we can build in more flexibility for the future, to allow younger family members some degree of involvement later.”
Communication the key
All of this is predicated on Veritas being able to communicate with the client as a trusted advisor, to propose and execute appropriate structures and solutions. “The Indian mindset requires trust as a pre-requisite for working on these types of areas,” he explains.
Abhijit believes that when it comes to legal or other key practices, the client will continue to seek out individuals rather than brands for their comfort zone. “My experience tells me, even when there is a strong legal or other advisory brand, the promoters will continue to seek individuals with whom they are comfortable as their trusted advisor.”
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