With a back-dated effect from 1 January 2009, royal-owned Liechtenstein private bank and wealth and asset manager  LGT has sold its fiduciary business LGT Treuhand to the First Advisory Group, another provider of fiduciary services in Liechtenstein. 

With retroactive effect from the same date, LGT Swiss Trust Company will be taken over by LSP Trust,  founded by former STC employees, LGT said in a statement. 

In November 2008, following heavy client outflows when the German authorities bought data on LGT clients’ accounts in order to investigate tax evasion, LGT announced that it would thenceforth only offer trust and fiduciary solutions compliant with the tax legislation in its clients’ countries of origin. The firm now says the sale of the business was a further possible option, now realised.

In future, LGT Group will no longer provide fiduciary and asset structuring services, nor will it continue to offer trusts or foundations.

The affairs of LGT, like those of UBS in Switzerland, have helped to stoke controversy about the role of banking secrecy and so-called tax havens around the world.