The family office space is constantly evolving. This is driven in part by the investment flavour of the month, global economic/political trends, wealth transition within families, the family follow-me-go-round (families looking at what others are doing), and the general competitive environment amongst FO offerings.
Essentially, a family office is a set of services used by a wealth family to manage its wealth and other associated needs. There are no rules for how a FO can or should operate; it ought to be driven by demand and need. The other important issue is market segmentation: the FO needs of a family with 5B+ of assets are very different to those of a family with 500M, and these differences are qualitative as well as quantitative.
Because the SFO and MFO models have expected structures and associated constraints, new service models are being developed, like the virtual family office. Offerings like this evolve to meet demand, and are needed because so many families are global, because technology can deliver such an offering in a distributed and secure manner, and because no single solution can incorporate the best of everything.
Consider This: Do you have/use a family office? Do you know why? Have you mapped the set of services you need against your set of providers and scored/benchmarked them? Have you considered the changes that your family may face over the next 5-10 years and whether the set of services you have now will meet your ongoing needs over that period?
Original articles:
- Why Family Office Advisors Are Fast Becoming Extinct And How To Avoid It
- Family office principals unconvinced by next generation readiness for succession
- What Is A Family Office And Do I Need One?
- Family Office Insights: 10 Trends That Will Affect Family Offices In 2020
- The big shifts in family office succession and recruitment for 2020
- Multi-Family Office Over Single-Family Office
- Opportunities Abound Within The Family Office Space
- Russ Prince: Innovations In The Family Office Model
Here is more on reading on family office structure.
