The integration is the value.
Architecture before instruments. The why before the what.
What follows is the working scope of the firm. It is not a product list. The same instruments are available, in some form, from a great many institutions. What is composed at Senatus is the architecture in which those instruments perform — the why beneath each, the order in which each is engaged, and the way each is held to the family’s long-term position.
The scope below is organised by the six axes upon which a family’s wealth is composed. The firm is the satellite above each — convening, directing, rarely executing in isolation. Each instrument is engaged when the architecture calls for it, and held to a single measure: the advancement of the family’s position across the generations that will inherit it.
The governance layer.
The instruments through which the family governs itself — and through which the next generation is prepared for the architecture they will inherit.
Family Constitution
A document of identity, values, and rules — authored by the family over six to twelve months and ratified by it.
Governance Charter
The operational companion to the Constitution: family council, advisory committee, meeting cadence, decision rights.
Family Meeting Facilitation
Scheduled working sessions, chaired independently. Difficult conversations held in a structured setting.
Wealth Disclosure Roadmap
A sequenced plan for disclosing financial position to the rising generation, calibrated to readiness rather than to age.
Rising-Generation Development Program
A curriculum and mentorship structure for next-generation stewardship of capital, ownership, and family role.
Incapacity Decision Protocol
A written protocol for medical and financial decision-making, coordinated with powers of attorney.
Prenuptial & Marital Planning Coordination
Coordination of matrimonial counsel with the broader governance and succession architecture.
Philanthropic Architecture
Donor-advised fund, private foundation, or hybrid vehicles — constructed to serve the family’s philanthropic objectives, governed across generations.
Digital Asset Succession
Inventory and instruction for digital property — credentials, accounts, intellectual assets — recorded for the family that follows.
The concierge layer.
Instruments that return a principal’s attention to the decisions that matter — and that hold the foundation on which every other asset rests.
Family Operating Manual
A written reference for the household, refreshed annually — the day-to-day record by which the family’s affairs are administered.
Chief-of-Staff Retainer
A named operational principal; one point through which calendar, personal risk, and administration are held.
Consolidated Bill Pay & Cash Flow Administration
Central administration of the family’s operating cycle — payments, cash position, and household reporting under one frame.
Cyber Hygiene Audit & Monitoring
Structural review of the family’s digital perimeter, maintained on retainer.
Personal Risk & Security Planning
Kidnap-and-ransom, travel, residential, and specialty coverage held within the family’s broader risk architecture.
Medical Records & Concierge Integration
Clinical records consolidated into a single concierge frame the family controls.
Health-and-Insurance Timing Review
Coverage reviewed against changing health status; insurance placed while insurability still holds.
Cognitive Baseline Protocol
A clinical partnership through which cognitive baseline is measured and tracked over time.
Rising-Generation Mental Health Network
A vetted network of clinicians, engaged in confidence on behalf of the next generation, when applicable.
The structural layer.
The instruments through which what the family holds is built and what it keeps is preserved.
Consolidated Family Balance Sheet
A single, continuously updated view of assets, liabilities, and commitments across every entity the family holds.
Investment Policy Statement
The written governance under which every investment decision is made — the document that outlasts any portfolio manager.
Core Portfolio Oversight
Supervision of independently licensed portfolio managers, selected for fit with the family’s tax position rather than to a model.
Alternative & Private Deal Access
Co-investment, private equity, private credit, and direct opportunities, evaluated against the family’s architecture rather than against vintage.
Treasury, Cash & FX Management
Administration of managed cash and currency exposure across accounts, families, and jurisdictions.
Insurance as Structural Capital
Permanent insurance — whole life, universal, COLI, PPLI, critical illness — engineered as balance-sheet infrastructure rather than as protection in isolation.
Liquidity Stress Testing
Modelling of the family’s capacity to meet obligations through periods of stress, illiquidity, or market dislocation.
Concentration & Diversification Planning
Structural response to single-asset concentration, sequenced over years to the family’s tax position and stated objectives.
Buy-Borrow-Transition Orchestration
Coordinated sequencing of lending, investment, and estate structuring so capital is accessed without realisation events.
The structures that hold ownership and decision rights.
The architecture beneath the architecture — the tax, entity, and accounting framework within which capital is held, governed, and transferred.
Tax Strategy & Remuneration Design
Multi-year planning across personal, corporate, and trust structures — the timing and character of income recognition, dividend extraction, and gain crystallisation within the broader architecture.
Tax Law Counsel
Senior counsel for corporate reorganisation, estate freezes, intergenerational transfer, and dispute resolution — engaged before transactions are papered, not after.
Accounting & Compilation Coordination
Compilation, returns, and reporting across the complete entity map, directed under a single mandate.
Shareholder Agreement Architecture
Drafting and coordination of shareholder, partnership, and buy-sell agreements — the documents that govern who owns what, and on what terms it is transferred.
Corporate & M&A Coordination
Coordination of corporate counsel for governance, reorganisations, acquisitions, divestitures, and strategic exits — from owner-managed enterprises through complex multi-entity transactions.
Litigation & Dispute Resolution
Representation and coordination in disputes that threaten enterprise value, contractual rights, or the continuity of the family’s position.
The transition layer.
The instruments through which what is transferred arrives intact — estate, trust, and continuity composed for the generations that will receive what has been built.
Integrated Estate Plan Quarterbacking
Coordination of wills, trusts, and estate documents across jurisdictions and generations, held in concert rather than authored in isolation.
Wills, Powers of Attorney & Guardianship
Drafting and maintenance of the family’s foundational estate documents.
Estate Freeze Design & Review
Architectural design and periodic review of freeze structures across the operating business and the family’s investment entities.
Twenty-One-Year Trust Planning
Modelling and sequencing of trust restructuring years in advance of the anniversary, so the deemed disposition is met by an architecture rather than an event.
Letters of Wishes
Narrative guidance to executors and trustees, aligned with the Family Policy Statement and the family’s long-term intent.
U.S. Estate Tax & Cross-Border Exposure
Coordination of Canadian and U.S. estate counsel under a single family mandate — situs assets, treaty positions, and unified credit considered together.
Business Continuity Planning
Operating continuity in the event of the principal’s incapacity or death — documented, agreed, and refreshed.
Business Succession & Sale Readiness
Pre-transaction structural preparation: corporate purification, freezes, insurance placement, and the alignment of the family’s tax position to the transaction.
Spousal Trust & Post-Mortem Rollover
Architecture for the deferral of deemed disposition at death — spousal trust design, s. 70(6) rollover positioning, and the post-mortem coordination that determines how the estate is taxed.
The mandate that holds the architecture.
The retainer under which the foregoing is convened, directed, and held in concert — the satellite view that allows each instrument to perform within a system rather than alone.
Integrated Family Office Retainer
The written mandate under which Senatus holds the coordination of the family’s affairs — the document that converts a list of instruments into an architecture.
Annual Family Audit
A complete architectural review of the family’s position, delivered in writing once each year and recorded as the working baseline.
Quarterly Capital & Risk Review
Formal joint reviews with the family and its retained advisors, on a scheduled cadence, against the Family Policy Statement.
If the scope above resembles the architecture your family requires, the next step is a private conversation.
Senatus accepts a select number of new family relationships each year, predominantly through private referral. A member of the Private Office will respond, in confidence, within twenty-four hours.
Request a Private Conversation