Family office

A family office looks after a family’s wealth outside, and sometimes alongside, its operating business. The scope varies widely from one office to another.

Services a family office commonly provides include:

• Investment management: managing or overseeing portfolios, often through outside managers.
• Financial administration: accounting, reporting, bill payment and cash management.
• Coordination with advisors: working with the family’s lawyers, accountants and tax advisors on estate and tax matters.
• Governance support: organising family meetings, the family council and family assembly.
• Philanthropy: running a family foundation or charitable giving.
• Education: programs for the next generation on ownership, finance and responsibility.
• Personal services: in some offices, property management, travel or household staff.

A single-family office serves one family and is owned by it. A multi-family office serves several families, which share the cost of the staff and services. Private banks and wealth managers also offer family office services as part of their own offering.

Family office or family business?

The family office manages the family’s wealth. The family business is an operating company. In many families they are run separately, with different leaders, and the office may hold a stake in the business on the family’s behalf. Together they often form what advisors call the family enterprise.

Why it matters for the successor

The family office is often where next generation education and succession conversations are coordinated, and its head may be one of the advisors who suggests preparing the successor. A family office can organise programs, but preparing one person to lead the board and the senior team is narrower work. What a family office does for the next generation describes the typical role.