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Establishing a Family Office is an increasingly common way for ultra-high-net-worth business families to manage their family wealth and affairs.
In broad terms, a Family Office supports a family with the organisation, administration, management and maintenance of its wealth. Primarily a Family Office is responsible for the management of your family’s financial assets when you collectively want to maintain a closer degree of governance and control.
Family Offices come in different forms and can perform a wide variety of activities. Irrespective of shape or size, they have access to private information and become involved in matters that are very personal and sensitive to individual family members and your family as a whole.
A Family Office should be underpinned by a very strong shared purpose and vision for your family’s wealth, along with a desire to develop, maintain and control the necessary financial and investment management expertise close to your family.
Establishing a Family Office involves the delegation of activities concerning the wealth and affairs of your family. This may be to specific family members and also to people outside your family, whether they are hired into it, or accessed through the use of institutional service providers. Therefore, the approach to the development of your Family Office requires careful, prudent design and planning.
Growing wealth alongside a growing family doesn’t have to bring growing worries. A Family Office can take the strain.
We believe that a family should maintain close control of the governance of its Family Office. To do this, your family will need to establish the strategic goals and objectives for the activities to be undertaken by the Family Office, create a clear mandate and control framework for the delegation of tasks, and keep a close eye on its activities and the results achieved.
In our experience, before establishing a Family Office, your family should carefully consider the need for one and its scope, before creating a plan for its governance, oversight and management. Making sure this is in line with the long-term vision for the management of the family’s financial assets and affairs, and will be run as part of the infrastructure for the management of the family’s wealth.
Together with its many advantages, a Family Office potentially creates new roles for certain family members and brings about considerable responsibility.
If you are considering setting up your own Family Office, we can help you understand the range of options, what is involved and how to reach the outcome that’s best for you and your family. We can help you to design and implement a Family Office and support you with a range of services to make sure it operates smoothly.
Please contact us to receive The Guide to Creating a Family Office and to learn more about the ways we can assist you in this important next step to drive your family aspirations forward.