6 Money Hacks Billionaires Use To Protect Their Wealth

I've sold billions and billions and billions of dollars worth of real estate in the last 15 years of my career properties that have sold for over a hundred million dollars properties that are listed for over 250 million dollars specializing in the high-end luxury Market is something that has taken me a long time to learn but when you have that specialty it means that your clients aren't just anybody the ultra wealthy the multi-multi-millionaires and a good amount of billionaires and in order to do all of that my clients have to pull back the curtain at least a little bit to show me how much money they actually have and how they move it so that they can prove that it's theirs and so that they can successfully purchase their new multi-million dollar home I want to share something with you all let's talk about the six ways that the ultra wealthy protect their money when you get to a certain level of wealth you will also want to do whatever you can to increase your privacy because once you have money everybody's watching and you're automatically a Target so for the sake of their privacy a lot of wealthy people use these six strategies to move their money protect their wealth without anybody finding out first off imagine you're an actor but instead of playing a role in a movie you're playing the role of a property or business owner the ultra wealthy will often use what's called nominee services to have another person or entity named in legal documents providing an added layer of privacy for the actual owner and these Services can be used for Real Estate assets companies when someone tries to find out who owns a home an asset or a company they'll see the nominees name who isn't the actual owner I remember selling an apartment on Park Avenue years ago for 30 million dollars we were able to keep our owner's name and likeness private but the nominees name actually had a photo online of him and his wife and so the Press Wall Street Journal everything showed that guy as the owner of this apartment and he was gay and he was getting bombarded with attacks and this what dude I didn't know you had 30 million it's a whole a whole thing so the nominee is basically just a name sometimes it's a name that's attached to a real person like in that example and they don't have any control of the assets that they are the nominee of and this is usually done for privacy reasons or to facilitate transactions without anybody knowing then you have trusts imagine you're playing a game of hide and seek a trust is the ultimate hiding place for your assets a trust is a legal Arrangement where you hand over your assets to another person or institution called a trustee the trustee then promises to look after your assets either on your behalf or for the people you care about who are known as the beneficiaries the reason why the ultra wealthy will opt to establish trusts and then name themselves or their family other kids as beneficiaries is that in many jurisdictions the details of a trust are not publicly available no one knows what assets are in the trust or who owns it so there's incredible protection with trusts and in the United States the most common places where I've seen some of my clients establish their trusts are then States like South Dakota Nevada Delaware even Alaska all because they have certain levels of asset protection privacy and tax benefits but for my wealthy International clients that's where I've seen trust established in places like the Cayman Islands Bermuda Singapore Switzerland and a handful of other countries here's a third way that the ultra wealthy protect their money real estate and art obviously I'm biased here but like I said these are two of my personal favorites as a real estate broker to the ultra wealthy I see firsthand how properties can serve as not just homes but also as places to store wealth and the same goes for things like valuable paintings and sculptures you don't think Jay-Z and Beyonce just spent 200 million dollars on a bunch of concrete and Malibu because they couldn't find a better deal do you when you have that type of wealth you have to put it somewhere one of my first major clients ever bought an 8.3 million dollar apartment for me basically over the phone and when I asked at the closing table why did you buy this are you looking to actually live here for your kids or anything he makes a billion dollars a year he's got to put his money somewhere and when you have that type of wealth you have people that work for you literally trying to figure out all day long where to put it now the reason why real estate and art are great for wealth protection is that the assets are also tangible they're physical objects right their places that can be privately purchased and owned by entities like trusts and shell companies and they can be enjoyed beautiful art is great to look at it could be fun to collect you can get into it it can be really really really intense right it can be competitive same thing with real estate while companies can go bankrupt and disappear real estate and art can't unless they I don't know burn to the ground or get stolen but hey that's why the ultra wealthy have a lot of insurance the fourth way cryptocurrencies now at this point everybody knows about crypto now for the ultra wealthy crypto can effectively act like the ultimate offshore bank account it's just digital cash that you can own anonymously sending it wherever you want whenever you want now cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and ethereum do make it pretty easy to track where and how money is being moved everything is logged on the blockchain that's the whole point but there are also certain cryptocurrencies like Monero Z cash and dash that are called privacy coins because they make those transactions untraceable fun fact many years ago I once negotiated a deal with a buyer offered 13 million dollars in Bitcoin Bitcoin and Bitcoin at around 13 and change and the seller said no because at the time Bitcoin was worthless in their mind it was a joke if the seller had accepted that offer that Bitcoin would now be worth at the depressed price one billion dollars ah now let's hop on to number five offshore accounts think of offshore accounts as secret treasure chests but instead of being on a deserted island they're in a bank in another country having an offshore bank account is totally legal and helps the ultra wealthy protect their money maintain their privacy and diversify their wealth there are a couple of key differences between offshore accounts and trusts firstly with an offshore account you're still in full control of all your money you're not electing someone else to manage it for you like you are with a trust and then secondly offshore bank accounts are used to store cash and not other assets like real estate art or gold but naturally when the rich are looking to open offshore bank accounts they're generally looking for countries that have strong political and economic stability and I'm talking about countries like Switzerland Cayman Islands Luxembourg Singapore even the Isle of Man you know that tiny little country between the UK and Ireland whose flag is like a triangle of legs turns out that a lot of wealthy people have bank accounts there now you know regardless of where they are I see offshore bank accounts all the time when working with wealthy clients looking to acquire real estate the sixth way that the ultra wealthy protect that wealth is in Shell companies a shell company is a company that exists only on paper they have no office no employees but they can own a variety of Assets Now in the United States the two most common places were the ultra wealthy and just business people in general I guess decide to open shell companies is in Wyoming and Delaware not only do those two states have very clear well-structured laws around operating businesses making them super business friendly environments should your shell company ever be involved in litigation but they also have two things the ultra wealthy love tons of privacy basically no taxes both Wyoming and Delaware you can run Anonymous corporations meaning that the ownership structure is never made public and on top of that you can create a shell company owned by a trust that owns other shell companies that own more shell companies and you get the picture and this structure gives you extreme levels of privacy and Financial Security so if someone tries to come after you with a lawsuit all of your assets are technically owned not by you but by your trust and the shell companies making it so that you are completely protected in your shell and there you have it those are just six of the many many many ways that I've seen multi-millionaires sent to Millionaires and billionaires protect their money again not to do anything illegal like you see in the news the movies and you know like you might see that on social media but to give themselves added layers of protection and privacy and wealth security and for many of you that are aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners or that are actively working on Building Wealth for yourselves and and for your families this may be a helpful introduction to understanding how you can start to structure your financial life like the wealthy Elite do I hope you enjoyed this video because if you did please be sure to leave a like and comment below and if you're not already subscribed subscribe now and we'll see you [Music] foreign thank you

Channel: Sell It

Views: 79,179

Keywords: Ryan Serhant, SERHANT, SERHANT., Real Estate, Business Advice, Advice for Entrepreneurs, Advice for Real Estate Agents, Advice for Realtors, real estate agent, real estate broker, new york city, nyc, real estate advice, entrepreneurship, entrepreneur, CEO

Id: ekn7gJn2kgw

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023