Business owners
Owners whose wealth is bound up in the company they run. We help separate the two — what the business needs, what the family needs — and move capital between them without paying for the privilege twice.
Private wealth advisory · Adelaide, South Australia
Quiet counsel for what you have built.
Quillan is a private wealth advisory practice for business owners, professionals and families. We advise on the decisions that shape a lifetime of capital — and on what becomes of it afterwards.
Who we act for
Three kinds of client. One standard of care.
Most people who come to Quillan share a moment: something has changed, or is about to, and the arrangements that once served them well no longer fit.
Professionals
Surgeons, partners, barristers and senior executives: strong incomes, little time, and a tax position that punishes inattention. We build a structure that works while you do, and a plan for the day you decide to stop.
Families
Families holding wealth across generations, often with a trust or two, some property, and a conversation about succession that keeps being postponed. We help you have that conversation, then give it a form that will last.
What the practice does
Four disciplines, practised together.
Each can be engaged on its own. They work best as one plan, held by one practice, reviewed at one table.
Advice
Everything begins with a written strategy: a plain account of where you are, where you want to be, and the sequence of decisions that connects the two. It covers structure, tax, cash flow, debt, insurance and the things money is actually for. It is reviewed with you each year and rewritten when your life changes, rather than when the calendar says so.
Portfolios
We build portfolios to serve the plan, not to perform for their own sake. That means low cost, broad diversification, an honest view of risk, and a written investment policy you can hold us to. We do not trade on the news, and we will tell you when the right thing to do is nothing.
Retirement
Retirement is a cash-flow question dressed as an investment question. We model what you will spend, the order in which to draw on super, company, trust and personal assets, and how to keep the tax position tidy through each phase. The aim is a retirement you can stop thinking about.
Succession and estate
For owners, succession is the sale or handover of a business and the family it supports. For everyone, it is the estate: wills, powers of attorney, trusts, superannuation death benefits, and the people who will one day need to understand them. We work alongside your lawyer and accountant so that the documents say what you meant.
How the practice is paid
A fee for the work. Nothing else.
Fee for service
Before any work begins you receive a written proposal setting out the scope and a fixed fee for it. You agree to it or you don't, and nothing starts until you have.
No commissions
It is the practice's policy to accept no commissions, product payments, referral fees or other benefits from anyone but the client. If a recommendation would pay us, we don't make it.
Reviewed each year
Ongoing fees are set annually, in writing, against what the coming year will actually involve. They are not a percentage of what you hold, so our income does not rise simply because markets did.
The arrangement fits in a sentence: you pay us, and no one else does.
The first conversation
A first meeting, without obligation.
It takes place in our rooms or yours, at a pace set by you. Nothing is sold and nothing is signed.
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What happens
We talk about you before we talk about money: what you do, who depends on you, what you are trying to protect and what you would like to be free of. You will be asked more questions than you answer, and there is no presentation.
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What to bring
A rough picture of what you own and what you owe. Recent superannuation statements. The latest business accounts, if you have them. Any wills, trust deeds or shareholder agreements already in place. And the questions that have been sitting unasked.
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What follows
Soon after, you receive a short letter: our understanding of your position, what we believe the work is, and a fixed fee for doing it. If we are not the right practice for you, the letter says so and suggests who might be.
Perspectives
Notes written for clients.
Occasional papers from the practice's directors, sent to clients and available to anyone who asks for them.
On succession
Selling the business you built, and what to settle before a buyer appears
The best sale outcomes are decided years before the sale, in the structure of the company and the expectations of the family. A note on getting the order right.
Ask for a copyOn estates
A will is not an estate plan
Superannuation, family trusts and jointly held property mostly pass outside a will. Why the document people rely on most is often the one that governs least.
Ask for a copyOn portfolios
What a portfolio is for
Before asking how a portfolio should be invested, it is worth asking what it is meant to do. A short argument for putting the plan before the assets.
Ask for a copyBegin a conversation
Tell us a little about your position.
A brief note is enough. One of the practice's directors will reply to arrange a first meeting, and everything you write is held in confidence.