Corporate and Wealth Structures
Your business can grow. Your structure should be able to grow with it.
We design holding, reorganisation and wealth architectures for founders, investors and internationally mobile families who need to organise companies, retained capital, investments, risk and succession before complexity starts making decisions for them.
Strategy before entities · Tax, ownership and governance in one map
The problem is rarely that you own too few companies. It is not knowing why you own each one.
Structures often grow by accumulation: one company to start, another for a new venture, property inside the operating business, investments held personally and different advisers solving each piece. It works until an exit, audit, succession, new investor or international expansion changes the stakes.
Paying profits to the ultimate owner before reinvestment can produce a very different result from retaining capital within a properly designed corporate perimeter.
Business operations, cash, property and investments inside the same entity may expose assets that do not need to carry the same commercial risk.
A sale, investor, relocation or succession can narrow the available options when the architecture is considered only after the transaction is already underway.
Tax adviser, lawyer, bank and local accountant may each do their job correctly while nobody is designing the whole structure.
A good structure is not about adding entities. It is about giving every entity, asset and cash flow a purpose.
A sound architecture connects business, capital and wealth.
The right vehicle depends on the problem being solved. A holding company, asset vehicle, trust or foundation can perform very different functions and may receive radically different tax treatment from one jurisdiction to another.
Operations and growth
Which entity contracts with customers, where people and decision-makers sit, which company carries risk and how new ventures, shareholders or countries are added.
Ownership and reinvestment
Who owns subsidiaries, where dividends are received, how cash is retained, how new projects are financed and what happens when a participation is sold.
Assets, control and legacy
How property and investments are separated where appropriate, how family ownership is governed and how succession is prepared without pretending that a structure creates an automatic asset-protection shield.
Four structural decisions. One architecture that must work as a system.
This pillar addresses the overall strategy. These subpages go deeper into the four areas defined within the Corporate & Wealth Structures cluster.
Business & international holding companies
Parent companies, subsidiaries, dividends, shareholdings, reinvestment and group governance across domestic and international structures.
Corporate & tax restructuring
Reorganising existing companies, separating activities and preparing ownership changes, exits, expansion or a new group architecture with a defensible economic rationale.
Wealth structures
Organising ownership of property, investments and other assets, separating functions and risks and deciding which vehicle should hold each part of the wealth architecture.
Wealth planning & legacy
Family ownership, continuity, succession, governance and wealth vehicles designed to connect today's assets with the next generation.
Related solutions in Spain
For Spain-specific needs: Holding Company in Spain, Asset-Holding Company in Spain and Family Business Succession in Spain.
Complexity can grow by itself. Control does not.
A useful architecture reduces disconnected decisions and makes it clear what should happen to profits, risk and ownership as the business evolves.
Structure by accumulation
- every new venture creates another company without a group map;
- operating companies accumulate property, cash and investments;
- dividends and loans are decided only when cash is needed;
- personal residence and corporate management are analysed separately;
- succession planning begins when an emergency appears;
- restructuring means repairing decisions already implemented.
N30 architecture
- every entity has a defined economic and operating role;
- operations, assets and investment are separated only where it creates value;
- cash flows are modelled before transactions are executed;
- tax residence, effective management and cross-border structure are coordinated;
- exit and succession are designed from the outset;
- the result becomes a roadmap the owner can understand and govern.
A structure is not good because it works in a spreadsheet.
It should still make sense after tax law, banks, shareholders, real substance, documentation, audit, exit and succession are all included.
Where the ultimate owners live, where key decisions are genuinely made and where each entity is actually managed.
People, functions, premises, contracts and business rationale aligned with the jurisdiction and actual activity.
Services, funding and transactions between group entities require pricing and documentation under the relevant rules.
The result depends on payer, recipient, ownership percentage, treaty, domestic law and possible EU framework.
Separate entities do not automatically eliminate guarantees, director liability, contractual exposure or solvency concerns.
What happens on a subsidiary sale, capital distribution, succession, liquidation or future change of tax residence.
A foreign company is not an international strategy simply because it was incorporated abroad.
Once owners, subsidiaries, customers or assets span several countries, the design must incorporate residence, treaties, withholding, permanent establishments, transfer pricing, transparency, substance and anti-abuse rules.
European Union · Parent‑Subsidiary Directive
Europe can reduce tax friction. It does not make every holding structure valid.
Directive 2011/96/EU is designed to remove certain withholding taxes on qualifying distributions between EU parent and subsidiary companies and address economic double taxation when its conditions are met. The framework also includes an anti-abuse rule aimed at non-genuine arrangements that do not reflect economic reality.
Outside the EU — and within it when the Directive does not apply — bilateral treaties and domestic law drive the outcome. The structure has to be tested jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
For cross-border related-party transactions, the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines use the arm's-length principle as the international consensus framework for pricing transactions between associated enterprises.
Trust, foundation or wealth vehicle: define the problem before choosing the instrument.
These structures can play ownership, governance, continuity or succession roles in certain jurisdictions.
Their legal and tax treatment changes materially depending on the founder/settlor, beneficiaries, assets, retained control, residence and jurisdiction. A structure that is valid locally may be characterised very differently by another country.
Fiduciary ownership and rules
Potentially useful in systems that recognise the vehicle, but settlor, trustee, beneficiaries, effective control, reporting and tax characterisation all need to be tested.
Governance and continuity
Private foundations or analogous vehicles can serve wealth and succession objectives in selected jurisdictions, subject to their own governance and beneficiary rules.
Holding and specialised vehicles
In many cases a simpler corporate architecture solves the objective with less cost and greater clarity. Complexity should earn its place.
The more you have built, the more expensive improvisation can become.
Architecture creates the most value when business, wealth and ownership decisions start interacting.
Worth analysing when…
- you own several companies, business lines or joint ventures;
- you retain profits for reinvestment;
- the operating company holds material property, cash or investments;
- you expect an exit or new investors;
- the group is expanding across jurisdictions;
- family succession and continuity matter;
- the original structure no longer reflects your current wealth.
More structure may not help when…
- your existing company is simple and already fits its purpose;
- nearly all profits are withdrawn personally rather than reinvested;
- there are no material assets or risks to separate;
- maintenance cost would exceed the expected value;
- the only rationale is “pay less tax” with no business purpose;
- additional entities would reduce rather than improve control.
N30 Global may conclude that the right architecture is not to add another entity. That is also a strategic decision.
We do not start with incorporation. We start by drawing the system.
Before recommending a holding company, asset vehicle or international entity, we understand how the business works today and what needs to happen over the next several years.
Map
Shareholders, entities, activity, residence, assets, debt, flows and objectives.
Find friction
Mixed risk, inefficient capital, dependencies, costs, governance and succession issues.
Compare
Current structure vs alternatives, including tax, cost, obligations and exit scenarios.
Design
Ownership, subsidiaries, wealth, investment, cash flows and governance architecture.
Implement
Roadmap, documentation and professional coordination to turn the map into an operating structure.
Corporate structures: what to understand before reorganising.
Structures should not be chosen by name. They should solve a defined economic, tax, operational or wealth problem.
What is a corporate structure?
What is the difference between a holding company and an operating company?
Does a holding company automatically protect assets?
Does owning more companies always reduce tax?
When does an international holding company make sense?
What is the EU Parent‑Subsidiary Directive?
Can trusts or foundations protect family wealth?
Can an existing corporate structure be reorganised?
Do I have to change personal tax residence to improve my corporate structure?
Does N30 Global design and implement structures?
Last technical review: September 2026. General information only. Each structure requires tax, corporate, wealth and—where relevant—succession analysis in the jurisdictions involved.
Before creating another company, understand which problem it must solve.
We review your current architecture and identify where friction exists, which alternatives deserve analysis and in what order they should be implemented.
Fewer unnecessary pieces. More control. Own Your Money.