Family Office Organizations

According to the SEC’s website, the Form ADV is the form used by investment advisors to register with both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and state securities authorities. The form consists of two parts. Part 1 of the ADV requires information about the investment advisor’s business, ownership, clients, employees, business practices, affiliations, and any disciplinary events of the advisor or its employees. Form ADV Part 2 requires investment advisors to prepare narrative brochures written in plain English that contain information such as the types of advisory services offered, the advisor’s fee schedule, disciplinary information, conflicts of interest, and the educational and business background of management and key advisory personnel of the advisor. ALL REGISTERED INVESTMENT ADVISORS MUST SUBMIT AN ADV TO THE SEC. It’s relatively easy to find an ADV for an advisory firm or individual advisor you are evaluating – you can either ask them for a copy of the ADV, or you can search for the firm on the SEC’s website and download a copy of the ADV or information about the individual.

A family office is an organization a wealthy family set up by hiring a wide range of professionals across multiple disciplines – taxes, estate planning, accounting, bookkeeping, investing, etc. – to work for them and help them manage and execute their wealth management activities. By hiring a dedicated team of individuals, a family ensures that only their agenda is driving all of the activities. Many family offices manage budgeting, insurance, charitable giving, family owned business, wealth transfer, family governance, reporting and data aggregation and tax functions for the family they serve. Establishing a family office can be a costly endeavor, sometimes costing more than $2 million a year to run!

Like a family office, multi-family offices tend to be holistic and focus on a broad range of wealth management solutions including investment services, estate and tax planning, family governance and education and risk management. The difference between a single-family office and multi-family office is simple – a multi-family office serves many families, distributing the costs of running the firm. Ideally, multi-family offices should be independent of any financial institution and offer un-biased advice – however, in recent years the term ‘multi-family office’ has become a popular industry term and has been used to refer to operations that are affiliated with large financial institutions, so families should be cautious when choosing the firm they will work with.

A family office is an organization a wealthy family sets up by hiring a wide range of professionals across multiple disciplines – taxes, estate planning, accounting, bookkeeping, investing, etc. – to work for them and help them manage and execute their wealth management activities. By hiring a dedicated team of individuals, a family ensures that only their agenda is driving all of the activities. Many family offices manage budgeting, insurance, charitable giving, family owned business, wealth transfer, family governance, reporting and data aggregation and tax functions for the family they serve. Establishing a family office can be a costly endeavor, sometimes costing more than $2 million a year to run!

No, you will not. While we insist on keeping your family involved in the critical decision-making around your wealth management, we also play a critical role in execution by handling administrative tasks and supporting you in the implementation of your specific wealth management mandate. Because our advisory model is based on the premise that clients should be engaged in their wealth enterprise®s, we do not take discretion over your assets. We help you establish your wealth management priorities and objectives, and then execute on your behalf. You can be involved in the details of managing your wealth as much or as little as you like – but you keep the authority to make the critical decisions.

There are several ways you can assess whether a firm has a financial conflict of interest. First, find out how they are paid. A truly independent advisor is paid only by the client, without incentives or commissions paid by affiliates, money managers or other outside service providers. An advisor that does not receive money from sources other than the client minimizes or eliminates financial conflicts of interest with the client. Such an advisor is much more likely to provide advice because it is in the best interest of the family, not because they stand to receive a commission for selling a particular investment product.