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Media is a great tool for storytelling. Photo albums can reveal ancestral details, documents can highlight past events, and film can rejuvenate old memories. All these items contribute to your family’s legacy. Although we see the value in this irreplaceable media, few of us are doing enough to protect it. That is why we are exposing the top threats to your physical media to show what you can do to protect it for your family legacy.

As family offices evaluate their assets during the economic downturn, examining deductions and estate and trust planning can help form better strategies and objectives. In this Q&A discussion, learn how the valuation of distressed assets and investments can maximize your tax deductions through these challenging times.

While it is impossible to predict every catastrophe, thorough pre-event preparation and post-event response planning can help reduce the likelihood of loss and limit the severity of damage that can’t be avoided. This reference guide and sample planning forms based on decades of experience will help you proactively keep art and other valuables out of harm’s way.

Nearing the end of the year is an important time to consider any tax planning opportunities that may be available to you before ringing in the new year.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated the move from traditional office environment to work-from-home for most American office workers. It is clear that a significant portion of workers will move from a five-day in-office work week to something else. Recognizing, navigating, and adapting to the new office environment will be key to successful investing in the sector.

Over the past ten years U.S. equities have outperformed their non-U.S. peers, however history shows outperformance cycles through time. Contributing factors include differences in index compositions, narrow U.S. leadership, and currency headwinds for non-U.S. equities. Abandoning a diversified approach could result in missed opportunities as the recent trends can reverse quickly and without warning.

With the ongoing pandemic, a weakening economic recovery, and the upcoming elections, emotions are understandably high. It becomes even more important to filter out the emotion, which is something the best investors do. Other topics explored in this issue includes taking a deeper dive on the importance of diversification and maintaining a long-term lens.

COVID-19 has forced organizations of all kinds to consider what the future of their operations would look like in a post COVID-19 world. Family offices were no exception. Rapidly fading are the days when a family office would provide a space where their staff can work. Most of these physical offices now stand empty as working from home has become the new normal. For many family offices, the answer is to become a virtual family office.

One of today’s dominant macro-trends is the reversal of globalization—the free flow of people, goods, services, capital, technology, and ideas across national borders. COVID-19 has further accelerated the deglobalization. In this environment, equity investors may have a harder time finding steady profitability and value. Taking a look at how we got here and moving forward, history provides insights on how to navigate the challenge.

The key to success of any risk management plan is the development of an “all risk” approach that takes the entire family enterprise into account. Through a survey of more than 200 family office executives at single and multi-family offices, an uncovering of some worrying approaches has surfaced around the risks that family offices face, particularly cyber risk, family-related risk, investment risk, and employment-related/insider risks.