Panel 3: Luxury Asset Structuring & Finance | PCD Monaco Conference 2026

The afternoon session opened with a panel that brought together three specialists whose work sits at the intersection of law, finance, and some of the world's most complex movable assets. Chaired by Vincent McCartney, CEO of Camper & Nicholson Corporate Services, the panel comprised Bethan Waters, partner at Farrer & Co (London), and Geraldine Noel, founder of Acumum Legal & Advisory (Malta). Between them, they covered the structuring and financing of superyachts, private aircraft, art collections, and other high-value collectibles — a world where the asset in question might cross five jurisdictions in a week, and where the gap between good advice and inadequate advice can cost clients very significant sums.

The shift towards simpler structures

The panel's opening observation was about the direction of travel in ownership structures. McCartney noted a clear trend away from the layered constructions that were popular a decade or two ago — Panamanian foundations, holding BVI companies and complex nominee arrangements — towards simpler, more transparent structures. Frameworks like CRS, FATCA, BEPS, and the wave of transparency regulation have combined to make those arrangements largely pointless, while creating risks that their complexity once obscured. "I'm seeing much more of a desire for vanilla structuring," he said. "A company owning a yacht, that company perhaps owned by a trust. Typically it really is that simple. The structures that look sleek and cost effective on paper often turn out to be the most expensive and operationally challenging in practice."

Privacy and the Maltese angle

Noel, working from a Maltese base, offered a different angle on the same point. Malta's beneficial ownership register does not always follow what might appear to be the obvious logic of who the UBO is — meaning that in practice, structures can be arranged such that trust directors or senior managing officials appear on the public record, providing a degree of privacy for family clients who have genuine security concerns. This is not evasion; it is a legitimate use of corporate structuring as per the legal rules within a well-regulated EU member state.

For clients from West Africa and the Middle East, where security considerations have always been real, this kind of arrangement is not a post-transparency era novelty — it has always been part of responsible advice.

Simplicity as enforceability

Waters brought the perspective of a financing lawyer who acts on both sides of transactions involving luxury assets. The key point she emphasised on structures was that simplicity is important not just for transparency reasons but for enforceability: if a lender needs to realise an asset when things go wrong, they need to be able to find it, identify it, and take possession of it without encountering a web of conflicting claims. "You want the asset to be bankruptcy remote, enforceable," she said. "If it's owned by a company in a jurisdiction where it's difficult to enforce, that makes getting your money back harder."

Private aviation: read the contract

On private aviation, Waters offered a vivid illustration of why having a transaction lawyer review contracts — even for experienced buyers — is not a luxury. A client had recently come to her seeking to complete an acquisition in two days. The contract looked structurally sound. On examination, however, the aircraft it related to had no engines, with a provision for engines to be provided at some unspecified future time. "Engines are kind of crucial when you need a plane," she observed, with commendable understatement. The specification section, meanwhile, simply referred to "such specifications as the seller provides." She declined to recommend proceeding.

Flag states and the advisory role

McCartney's discussion of flag states was one of the session's most practically illuminating passages. With approximately 100 flag states accepting yacht registrations and around 25 to 30 open registries, the temptation for owners to choose a low-cost, low-formality option is understandable. However, the consequences of choosing a lesser-known flag can be severe: port state control inspections, customs issues, and regulatory attention whenever the vessel enters any serious jurisdiction, in addition to weak technical support and potential impact to resale value.

The advisory role, therefore, begins long before the flag decision: understanding how the yacht is to be used, whether charter income is important, and whether the family will spend every August onboard in Saint-Tropez or winters in the Caribbean determines the entire structure. "It's only after you understand what the client wants that you can start looking at how you could potentially save them tax. Structures should never be driven by the asset at the outset, nor constrained by a jurisdiction chosen solely because a service provider is based there. Such arrangements often leave clients unable to use the asset as intended and correcting the structure later is significantly more complex and costly."

The art of art finance

Art presented its own complexities, which Waters addressed with characteristic directness. In the UK, raising finance against art held by an individual on their own walls is technically possible but practically very difficult — the applicable law dates to the Victorian era and most lenders will not touch it. The US is considerably more developed on this front. In Monaco, as in much of continental Europe, similar constraints apply.

Where art lending does work, she identified two distinct market segments: private banks with long-standing client relationships who will lend at reasonable rates against art held in warehouses as part of a broader portfolio relationship, and specialist lenders at the other end of the spectrum, where rates can be much higher. There is limited availability in between.

Knowing when to push back

The panel's closing thoughts were united by a common thread: good advice in this space requires depth of knowledge, breadth of experience, and the professional confidence to tell clients when what they think they want is not actually what they need. Noel invoked the phrase "cover your arse" — attendance notes, documentation, and a willingness to push back on clients who are "quite fickle." Waters echoed this: "Often a client will come to you and say, I want to do this. And then you dig a bit and you realise no — what you actually want is this." Not being frightened to say that, she concluded, is one of the most important things a luxury asset advisor can do.