— Chapter II —

Logbook

Dated notes from the work at the harbour.

« It's all about intel. Real-world alpha. The digital world is a commodity. » compound248
Watercolour of a desk with an open laptop, charts on the screen, an espresso cup, meadow flowers in a small vase.
Plate II The desk at which the notes are written. Espresso, meadow flowers, a telephone with the ringer off.
  1. 2026-04-19 Workshop note Southern Germany · NRW

    Konrad, sixty-seven, was to take two hundred and fifty thousand euros against a property that was in fact debt-free and worth one point five million, towards the end of the year. The house bank demanded four weeks, a valuation process, and a conversation with two generations of his family. We resolved it in eleven days through a Liechtenstein structure that names his daughter — not himself — as the later beneficiary. The house bank called afterwards and asked how that had been possible. I called back.

    — M. F.
  2. 2026-04-12 Tax note DE / CH

    A frequent fallacy that becomes expensive: a thirty-per-cent holding in a Swiss AG is said to be privileged business assets for inheritance-tax purposes. It is not. Section 13b (1) no. 3 of the German Inheritance Tax Act (ErbStG) requires a seat or place of management in the EU or the EEA. Switzerland belongs to neither. In a sudden estate, inheritance tax falls on the table like a plank. Solvable, for example, through a commercially characterised GmbH & Co. KG into which the holding is contributed; at that level EU membership is no longer required. Whoever learns this after the inheritance learns it too late.

    — M. F.
  3. 2026-04-05 Market observation DACH

    Four letters in one week, all to the same owner of a profitable maintenance business in North Rhine-Westphalia. Three of them from the INSEAD directory, one from a search-fund equity in London. What they have in common: none mentions the workforce. None asks after the hall in which the owner has stood every working day at half past six since 1989. None uses his first name. Whoever hunts life's work like share parcels will lose life's work like share parcels. That is the gap we serve.

    — M. F.
  4. 2026-03-28 Reading note FAZ · Welt · CNBC

    Two articles in one week that should be read together: « Erben statt erarbeiten — die riskanten Tendenzen am Standort Deutschland » in Die Welt, and « Wealthy inheritors plan to fire their parents' wealth advisors » at CNBC. The core statement is identical on both sides of the Atlantic: the generation that takes over has neither its parents' relation to work nor to their adviser. The consequence for the patriarch who is thinking this through today is clear: build, in your lifetime, a relationship that your heirs will want to continue with you, not without you. A change of provider by the next generation is not a risk — it is a statistic.

    — M. F.
  5. 2026-03-19 Harbour note Vaduz · Singapore

    Watercolour of the Glacier Express on the Landwasser Viaduct in the snow.
    The long way is often the quieter one.
    A client, seventy-three, asked me whether it still made sense today « to move south », after the property in Mallorca and in Portugal has taken the familiar journey over the last ten years. My answer: do not move — hold keys. A shared availability across three or four quiet houses in different climates and legal orders is cheaper today than a single second home, and in an emergency it is faster. Concierge and availability are the new ownership. Liechtenstein in the spring, Singapore in the autumn, Bali in November — and in Zurich when the grandchildren come.

    — M. F.
  6. 2026-03-08 Workshop note FL

    A patriarch, seventy-one, wanted to understand what a multi-signature wallet actually is. We sat for three hours at his dining table in Bregenz. In the end he understood that at its core it is nothing other than the four-eyes principle he has applied to his bank transfers for thirty years — only without the bank. The questions he then asked were good: What happens if I do not wake up tomorrow? Who then has the second key? I answered as precisely as he deserved. That same evening we built a recovery path that included his daughter-in-law, his notary, and me. Three keys, two signatures. He slept better that night.

    — M. F.
  7. 2026-02-22 Tax note FL · DE

    The Inter IKEA Foundation in Liechtenstein records on its site a sentence that every company-related foundation should adopt word for word: « If any family member becomes employed in any of the businesses owned by Inter IKEA Foundation, they would only be eligible for a salary under the same terms as any other co-worker. » Whoever separates family and company cleanly protects both. The most common advisory lie in the German-speaking world is that a foundation takes the patriarch out of the game. It does not. It orders the game. Würth, at eighty-nine, is the living proof.

    — M. F.
Watercolour of a marmot sitting upright on a rock in the mountains.
Attentive, but not nervous.

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