The new investment fund is independent of the government and 60% of its shares are owned by the Big Society Trust, a private limited company comprised of executives from social, business and government roles.

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The plan would have seen the council and trust working with a private company to centralise certain services, including IT support and payments.

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In early 1997, Robert Wolf, a Pittsburgh attorney, and Bruce Guiot, a director in the trust company of PNC Private Bank, studied the use of total return payouts for family trusts by back-testing various investment scenarios.

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He and his wife emerged with a private foundation, a remainder trust and one lead trust with shares in a family limited liability company, plus two more that spring into being on the death of the surviving spouse.

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Because Cargill remains a privately held company, officials at the foundation and the trust could not at first liquidate the private Cargill stock.

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In the lawsuit, filed in December in the probate division of Superior Court in Washington, the heirs also contend they lost access to Chevy Chase's private banking services when the company's affiliated thrift was sold three years ago, leaving the trust company standing on its own.

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Morgan went directly to his private office where he began a conference with George Baker, James Stillman, and several other bank and trust company officials.

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Rather, the company should expose and even shine a light on the whole conversation, building trust and loyalty among customers through conversations that occur outside the walls of the company itself, not inside private walled-off forums.

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