You have the task of advising clients as an accountant. Among your clients is a family with a mother and father both aged 50 (and with considerable wealth), and four children, aged 21, 18, 17 and 10. The parents wish to involve their children in their next business venture. The parents anticipate contributing $2 million of their own capital and having the venture borrow a further $2 million. The parents seek your advice as to how the venture should be structured.

The investments under consideration are:

1.a retail business;

2.a farm;

3.a speculative mining venture; and

4.a long-term investment portfolio.

Advise the parents, with reference to the relevant facts, as to how the various business ventures under consideration should be structured. Examine the relative advantages and disadvantages of the structures available in law for acquiring and conducting these proposed investments. Issues to examine will include the relative complexity, flexibility, aspects of liability and suitability for financing purposes for each particular structure contemplated.