Brent Berselli | Holland & Knight

Brent Berselli is an attorney in Holland & Knight’s Portland office, where he is a member of the firm’s Private Wealth Services Practice Group and co-chairs the Family Office practice. Mr. Berselli serves as outside counsel to family offices and private businesses throughout the United States. High-net-worth individuals, including principals of private equity, venture capital and hedge fund firms, entrepreneurs, startup founders and business owners, seek Mr. Berselli’s counsel in all aspects of wealth transfer strategies, transfer tax, and income tax planning and business succession.

Equine Industry Estate Planning. Mr. Berselli has experience with transfer and estate tax planning strategies for owners in the equine industry, including with respect to ensuring proper succession planning and the viability of the farm and equine operation as a going concern after the retirement and/or death of a principal. He has counseled substantial equine operations regarding potential lifetime and testamentary transfers of ownership interests in equine business ventures within the family as well as to key employees. Mr. Berselli counsels’ equine industry principals regarding the formation and governance of stallion shares within the horse racing industry as well as with respect to planning regarding breeding rights. Additionally, he has worked with charitable and other tax-favored planning opportunities regarding real estate holdings on a farm.

Family Office Entities. Pooling family assets offers several advantages, including access to investments that would otherwise be unavailable to certain family entities and individuals, centralization of asset management decisions and the resulting reduction of overall investment fees and potential creditor protection. Mr. Berselli creates new entities to accomplish these goals and works with clients’ investment advisers to ensure that appropriate investment policies are developed that focus on the overall asset mix, as well as the different investment objectives applicable to a client’s taxable and nontaxable estate.

Private Company Succession Planning. A workable succession plan requires considerable development that often evolves over a multiyear period. Succession planning is necessarily an iterative process that requires close interaction between owners of privately held businesses and their advisors. Mr. Berselli guides business owners in designing and implementing a succession plan that balances the current and future needs of the business and the owner. Such coordination is particularly critical where an entrepreneur wants to transfer the business to the next generation but is relying on the ownership interest in the company to fund retirement.

Pre-liquidity Event Planning. Prior to the sale of a business or a major liquidity event, there are several wealth transfer opportunities that should be considered. Such strategies often focus on passing on potential wealth to future generations in a tax-efficient manner. Mr. Berselli is often called upon to assist owners of businesses that are embarking upon such transactions to guide them in this critical pre-translation planning process.

Wealth Planning for Private Equity, Venture Capital and Hedge Fund Principals. The unique nature of private equity funds requires specialized planning for the principals of such funds. Implementation of any wealth transfer strategy requires careful attention to the nature of the principal’s ownership interest, the fund documents and the manner of distributions. Mr. Berselli works closely with private equity fund principals to structure transfers involving their carried interest in their funds. Following such transfers, extensive additional planning opportunities are developed that are designed to maximize future wealth transfer while minimizing overall family transfer taxes.

An industry source says:

“Brent Berselli is very good. He is very sharp and crisp in his solutions and explanations.”

Timothy Fort | Kelley School of Business

Timothy L. Fort holds the Eveleigh Professorship in Business Ethics and is Professor of Business Law & Ethics at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He is also an Affiliated Faculty at the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Fort received the 2022 Distinguished Career Faculty Award from the Academy of Legal Studies in Business. In 2023, he was nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.

He has written one hundred articles/book reviews/book chapters along with twelve books; he has edited an additional twenty-five books. Two of his books have won the Best Book Award from the Academy of Management for Social Issues. He has won twelve research awards from three different academic associations, the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, the Society for Business Ethics, and the Academy of Management and has served on the editorial boards of the flagship journals of each of these associations. He has won five teaching awards and has served as academic director for a unique program for players from the National Football League; he also co-taught a course with then Federal Reserve Chair, Ben Bernanke. He has served as director of an institute, as department chair, and as an interim associate dean.

He has been a coach/consultant for Alexandra, Countess of Fredriksborg (Denmark) in her role as a member of the Board of Directors of Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Complementary to his work on business and peace, Tim’s research interest concerns how ethical business conduct can create positive organizational cultures, which in turn foster sustainable peace. He co-chaired a task force on the topic with the U.S. Institute of Peace and helped to develop a program with the U.S. State Department where MBA students served as pro bono consultants to entrepreneurs in conflict sensitive zones. He has also partnered with NGOs, such as International Peace Through Tourism and Peace Through Commerce. He has extended that work to music, sports, and film to create a research stream of “Cultural Foundations of Peace” where cultural artifacts serve as a nudge to make ethical decisions and to provide common ground for individuals who might otherwise disagree on social issues. In that regard, he has organized multiple conferences with faculty from the Jacobs School of Music, co-edited a book, written two articles, and organized a film series with the IU Cinema.

He is currently writing a book with Kristin Hahn, Executive Producer of Apple TV’s The Morning Show, author of two HarperCollins books, and who co-owns Echo Films with Jennifer Aniston. His pre-tenure work on how businesses can be “mediating institutions” is drawn from natural law and from bioanthropology. That work integrates leading theories of business ethics and emphasizes optimal corporate culture. Fort received his BA and MA from the University of Notre Dame and his PhD and JD from Northwestern University.

He taught at the University of Michigan from 1994-2005 and at George Washington University from 2005-2013.

Session I – Strategic Estate Planning with Carried Interest: Navigating Tax-Efficient Wealth Transfers | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

• Carried interest in private equity and hedge fund structures
• Tax and valuation challenges under IRC Chapter 14 and Section 2701
• The vertical slice approach: Structure, benefits, and compliance considerations
• Strategies to mitigate gift tax liabilities in wealth transfers
• Integrating advanced estate planning techniques (e.g., GRATs, SLATs)

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

Session II – Ethical Considerations in Estate Planning: Navigating Family Dynamics and Wealth Transfers | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

• The Model Rules generally applicable to efficient estate planning transfers of wealth
• Understand the unique interpersonal (usually family) dynamics most impinging upon the need for collective agreement to effectuate transfers
• Identify the Model Rules particularly applicable in such situations, specifically 2.1 and 1.4
• While some consideration will be given to carried interest, this segment will focus more broadly on the organizational and interpersonal dynamics necessary to effectuate efficient transfers, dynamics that often fall into an attorney’s lap in three kinds of  “zones of conflict”.