What Does a Trust Fund Manager Do?

A trust fund manager is responsible for protecting the financial objectives of business and individual clients. For wealthy individual clients, this may involve transferring assets, such as real estate, to other family members and attempting to prevent conflict as financial succession unfolds. The overseer of a business trust might manage retirement portfolios, including retirement funds, of select employees. A trust fund manager can also help a business to plan for a successor in the event that the current head of a company retires.

Even though a trust fund manager does not own the assets that this professional is overseeing, he or she has the legal authority to make decisions and changes as they relate to the financial security of the beneficiaries named in the trust. Part of the scope of responsibility for a trust fund manager is to use all fund assets, including real estate properties, investments in financial securities, and businesses, of an individual granter and apply these items in a way that produces the greatest possible benefit. Wealth managers often perform trust fund manager duties on behalf of granter clients.

Some of the tasks of a trust fund manager are more logistical. For instance, this professional may be responsible for seeing that certain financial obligations of the granter are continuously met. A manager of a trust might also organize and file yearly tax documents on behalf of the granter.

The manager must protect trust assets from losses and excessive taxation whenever possible. Also, in addition to protecting financial assets, the trust manager arranges these items so that any revenue streams, such as rental income, for instance, are optimized. Trust funds are complex agreements that do not reward the beneficiary until a designated event. In the event that a fund allows for certain monies to be released early to a beneficiary for specific purposes, such as to fund a child's education, it becomes the responsibility of the manager to dispense those allowances at the appropriate times.

Succession planning can be a vital component to the future of a business once a key figure is no longer available to run operations. A trust fund manager for a corporate entity can be involved in the search process to identify the next regime in a businesses management structure, whether a successor is already part of an organization or is someone new to the business. In the event that the trust dictates that a business be dissolved rather than include a successor, the trust fund manager may oversee the sale and subsequent distribution of assets relating to the dissolution of that entity.