MeesPierson provides philanthropic consulting service

MeesPierson provides philanthropic consulting service

MeesPierson, the wealth management and trust division of Fortis
Bank, recently opened its representative office in Indonesia to
provide premium services here, particularly in the field of
philanthropy advisory services. The Jakarta Post's Urip Hudiono
recently talked with MeesPierson Indonesia president director
Marc H.J. Hedeman Joosten about the company's activities and
business plans in Indonesia. The following are key excerpts from
the interview:

Question: What kind of services will MeesPierson provide to
its clients here in Indonesia?

Answer: Our services are actually quite broad. They are built
up out of seven fields of expertise, or what we call our "seven
competencies", which are investment management, trust and
fiduciary services, estate planning and structuring, real estate,
financing, insurance and philanthropy services.

However, as it will be very difficult for us to roll out our
service offering overnight in Indonesia -- as that would take a
long time -- we have decided to roll it out gradually, and the
first of the seven that we will offer here is the philanthropy
advisory services.

And we may decide to take the second step in bringing along
estate planning and structuring, which is also still an advisory
and consulting service.

And then as we grow, we may decide to bring in more.

What were your considerations in expanding your business --
particularly your philanthropy advisory services -- to Indonesia?

Basically, what we have seen here in the region -- as a whole,
but particularly in Indonesia -- is a strong demand for advisory
services in the field of charitable and non-profit causes.

And this is a very broad field. People who are active in this
field can be individuals or families who want to give something
back to society, who want to give something to the universities
or to hospitals, or who want to set up some kind of an
educational project. Or it can also be larger non-governmental
organizations (NGO) or foundations with projects here in
Indonesia.

I think that it is recognized that there is a further need to
professionalize the activities that they are conducting.

Could you explain more about your philanthropy advisory
service?

Just to give a simple example. If a wealthy family comes to us
and says they would like to do something for the region they
originally came from -- like setting up a school -- then how do
we go about organizing this? How do we ensure that it is
sustainable and it is multi-generational, meaning that it will
continue to be there three or four generations down the road?

Furthermore, the family might not only want to actually
provide the infrastructure of the school itself, they or another
family might want to donate a library as well, and still another
family might be interested not in building -- in terms of bricks
and mortar -- but in actually providing teachers.

So the idea is to try and see whether we can bring various
interests by these families together to create a viable and
sustainable project.

Because I am sure if you have traveled in this area and other
countries, you sometimes encounter projects, where you have a
beautiful hospital but it is completely empty -- there is no
equipment, no doctors, no nurses -- because someone just had the
idea to donate and build the hospital without making it viable.

So our people try to assist families in preparing and
implementing projects, in such a way that they can actually work
and that they can work for the next hundred years.

We also have organizations who come to us and say that they
are getting donations in from the public, and asking how can we
improve their accountability and transparency, thus ensuring that
if people donate funds for a particular cause, it can be
demonstrated that the funds are used properly.

Or, if clients say that they have been relatively inactive in
their charity endeavors for the last couple of years, and they
want to reactivate their activities, how can we help them to go
about organizing the fund-raising.

What resources have you prepared in ensuring a premium level
of your services? How many staff members do you have?

We have five staff members, including myself.

Our employees in the philanthropy sector are people who have
been in the charity business all through their professional
careers, so they are specialists in their field and they know
most of the key players globally.

We also plan to have two more offices to provide our services,
located where the families and institutions that have
philanthropic endeavors are located.

Next year, we hope to be able to open an office in Surabaya,
and in 2007 another office.

What philanthropy projects are you working on with your
clients now?

We have a number of projects going on now. We have two large
projects and about five smaller ones.

One of the large projects involves a very well-known
international organization whose cause is to protect the
environment -- the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) -- who is working
toward initiating and completing a project in Indonesia. We act
as their consultants on a global scale.

Another project, in education, is for one of the country's
biggest foundations -- the Sampoerna Foundation. We are working
with them to ensure the foundation is best in class
internationally.

Besides philanthropy advisory services, you also mentioned
about providing other wealth management services? Could you
explain more about your estate planning and structuring service?

Estate planning is a situation whereby families have become
very wealthy and have assets not only in Indonesia, but also in
other locations in the world.

And when the owner of these assets passes away, the family
could be faced with difficulties in coping with the succession
laws of various countries where the assets are.

On the other hand, if you do have proper planning in advance,
you can actually avoid such a situation.

So when we talk about estate planning we are also actually
talking about succession planning.