We can start with its purpose.

It is essential to clarify that a Panamanian Private Foundation cannot be simply profit-oriented or carry on a particular business. A Private Foundations can sporadically perform certain business acts when such actions are convenient or advantageous to the Foundation and only if the proceeds of such acts are dedicated exclusively to the non commercial purpose or objectives of the Foundation.

Therefore, the purpose of a Private Foundation shall be along the following lines: “To contribute to the costs of upbringing, education, aid, as well as general maintenance or other similar aims of one or more members of one or several families as established in its Regulations.”

In addition to the members of one or several families, the Foundation may benefit other persons or corporate entities, including institutions of any kind. It may also take the necessary provisions for the orderly disposition or succession of its inheritance.

To achieve its objects; the Foundation is authorized to preserve, administer, and invest the Foundation’s assets, being these assets of any kind, particularly of real estate and ownership in other entities, and to conclude all businesses and legal transactions serving the pursuit and the realization of such objects.

The first document: The Foundation Charter.

For those readers who are not familiar with the foundation concept, it consists of the endowment of an estate for a specific purpose determined in the document whereby the Foundation is created and internally organized, known as the Foundation Charter.

Once the Foundation Charter is registered in the Panama Public Registry, the property endowed or endowed becomes an estate separate and apart from its founders by acquiring a juridical autonomy, thus becoming a Private Foundation.