The Boston Globe reports that Harvard Management Co.'s head of private equity, Lane MacDonald, is leaving to go work for "Fidelity Investments chairman Edward C. 'Ned' Johnson 3d's personal wealth management firm." The article concludes: "The Johnsons moved Crosby Advisors in 2010 from Boston to its current location in Salem, N.H."
The New Hampshire Business Review says a 2006 rewrite of the state's trust laws has attracted trusts and family offices:
Here are some of the reasons New Hampshire is so attractive to trust companies, explained to NHBR by Ardinger and Todd Mayo, head of the trust and estates practice group at the Concord-based Cleveland, Waters and Bass law firm:
• The trusts can last forever. New Hampshire is one of the first states to repeal the rule against perpetuities, an old common law. The 2004 repeal allowed for the creation of "dynasty trusts," which allow for wealth to pass from generation to generation while minimizing the federal estate tax. The trust does pay taxes on the transfer, usually through the generation-skipping tax, but the savings on large estates could be substantial.
• The trusts don't pay income taxes. Generally, income from trusts isn't taxed at the state level. And while New Hampshire doesn't have an income or capital gains tax, it does have an interest and dividends tax, but last year the Legislature eliminated that tax for non-grantor trusts. New Hampshire beneficiaries still have to pay the tax, but only on what is distributed to them. Those wealthy families parking their money in New Hampshire don't have to pay a penny.
Capital is mobile, and it will go where it is well-treated.