Avyanco Featured in Gulf News on Holding Companies, Trusts & Foundations for UAE Wealth Succession

Gulf News has featured Avyanco in a piece on why UAE expat families are increasingly turning to holding companies, trusts and foundations to protect and pass on wealth. Anshul Agarwala, Senior Consultant — Accounts, Tax & Audit at Avyanco, was the named expert source, setting out how families should think about choosing between the three structures.

Read the full feature on Gulf News →

Why UAE expat families are structuring now

The feature points to a wider shift among internationally mobile families with assets and beneficiaries spread across several countries: rather than holding everything in a personal name, they're consolidating ownership through a holding company, or moving succession planning into a trust or foundation with its own legal personality. The article notes that DIFC alone now has over 1,250 family-related entities on its register — a sign of how mainstream these structures have become in the UAE, not a niche product for ultra-high-net-worth families only. Avyanco's wealth-structures practice works across exactly this range, from a single holding company to a full DIFC or ADGM foundation.

Holding companies, trusts or foundations — how to choose

Asked how a family should decide between the three, Anshul's guidance was direct:

“Families should first assess what they own, where their assets are located, who should benefit and who should control them before selecting a legal structure.”

In practice that means starting from the assets and the people, not the jurisdiction: a holding company or SPV suits families consolidating business and investment ownership under one structure; a trust suits assets that need a trustee actively managing them for named beneficiaries; and a foundation — available through DIFC, ADGM or RAK ICC — suits families who want an entity that holds assets and continues operating in its own right, independent of any one founder's lifetime.

The tax dimension

The feature also flags a UAE Corporate Tax detail that's easy to miss: a qualifying family foundation can apply for Unincorporated Partnership treatment, so the foundation itself isn't taxed as a separate person and profits flow through to the underlying beneficiaries instead. Getting that election right — alongside each stakeholder's own tax residency and any foreign reporting obligations — is where structuring work and corporate tax advisory have to sit together rather than be handled separately.

Work with Avyanco

Avyanco's Anshul Agarwala and the accounts, tax and audit team advise UAE-based and international families on structuring, corporate tax and ongoing compliance. To talk through whether a holding company, trust or foundation fits your situation, speak to our team.