Family Office

Wilmington sharpens estate advisory capabilities

FWR Staff 12 March 2009

Wilmington sharpens estate advisory capabilities

Trust company adds fiduciary advisors to Wealth Advisory services business. Wilmington Trust has bolstered its Wealth Advisory Services business line with the addition of three senior tax and estate attorneys as fiduciary consultants. Henry Gissel Jr., Thomas Sweeney, and Leonard Togman will work with Wilmington Trust's wealth-advisory and family-office professionals to craft wealth and estate plans for the company's wealthiest private clients.

"Adding this trio of nationally recognized experts is a further demonstration of our commitment to provide our clients with access to what we believe is among the very best fiduciary expertise available," says Kemp Stickney, Wilmington Trust's chief fiduciary officer."

Hard times

Gissel, a retired senior partner of the Houston-based law firm Fulbright & Jaworski, is a former chairman of the Real Property Probate and Trust Law Section of the American Bar Association and past president of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils.

Sweeney is a retired director and past president of the Wilmington, Del.-based law firm Richards Layton & Finger, and, like Gissel, a past ACTEC president.

Togman is a retired senior partner of the Wilmington, Del.-based law firm Potter Anderson & Corroon, where he focused on state and federal taxation and estate planning, business transactions, and Delaware investment holding companies.

Being able to draw on the experience fiduciary expertise of Gissel, Sweeney and Togman is a particular boon in challenging times like these, according to Allen Snook, head of Wilmington Trust's Family Office unit. "As the economy struggles to regain its footing and the financial markets search for a positive direction, the need for clients to establish a sound, comprehensive plan to accumulate and preserve wealth is more important than ever," he says.

Wilmington Trust's Wealth Advisory Services business offers personal-trust, financial-planning, fiduciary, asset-management, and family-office services to help high-net-worth individuals and families increase, preserve and transfer their wealth.

Wilmington, Del.-based Wilmington Trust provides retail- and commercial-banking services in the U.S. mid-Atlantic area, wealth-management services to high-net-worth clients in 36 countries and corporate-client services in 88 countries. -FWR

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