Estate Planning

Sweet Success: Shares, Trusts & Families

By Hull & Hull LLP

It’s Hallow’s Eve – there will be candy all round tonight. Well, all weekend if we’re lucky.

And, fittingly, just in time for the sweet sound of “trick or treat” Mars, Inc. completed its purchase of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company earlier this month; the $23 billion transaction was initiated earlier this year by Mars. Two wealthy family dynasties reached a deal to secure for each giant a greater piece of the world’s confectionary market.  

The privately-held Mars with its headquarters in Virginia controls information very tightly; three grandchildren of Franklin Mars apparently live on a vast ranch in Wyoming. 

In 2002, after his father’s death in 1999, issues arose about Bill Wrigley Jr.’s right to vote the company shares held in a trust set up by his grandparents three decades earlier. The trusts sheltered nearly $3.2 billion, which was particularly important for him given his pending divorce. Presumably, shares held in trust are not part of the family assets to be divided at the time of divorce. The claimant insisted that the votes attached to the shares in trust were to be shared by other beneficiaries. The recent transaction seems to have smoothed over some family differences.

In Ontario, recently, Frye v. Frye Estate, 2008 ONCA 606 (CanLII) emerged with less fanfare but it is significant nonetheless. The Court of Appeal addressed the tension between a shareholders’ agreement and the rights of a beneficiary who received shares under a Will from a signatory of the agreement.  The Justices seem to have neatly balanced competing estate and corporate principles.

Have a good night.  Boo.

Jonathan

Full post as published by Toronto Estate Law Blog on October 31, 2008 (boomark / email).