Asian family offices are relying less and less on private banks, a relationship that had up until now been fairly strong in Asia.  Asian family offices and wealthy families often used private banks to help manage wealth but that model is now shifting as more and more private bankers strike out to set up their own family office.

The family office concept is less well established in Asia than in Europe or the US, but that is changing as regional wealth grows, along with the need to preserve and transfer it to the next generation.

And as the scale of single- and multi-family offices (FOs) grows, so does the threat posed to their traditional relationships with private banks, argue FO executives.

An Asian FO will typically use a number of private banks to help manage its wealth, says Ong Iu-Jin, chief executive of Singapore-based multi-family office Deauville Private Office.

But private bankers are starting to recognise the potential of setting up their own multi-family offices (MFOs), whereby they can look after several entire portfolios, rather than just parts of them. “In future, we will use more direct, institutional type service from investment banks and asset managers,” he notes, suggesting other FOs will do the same.  Source

tags: family offices, family offices in Asia, Asian private banks, Asian family offices and private banks, Asia families and private banks, ultra-high net worth individuals, hedge funds, asia, Deauville Private Office, Ong Iu-Jin

Last month, we reported on a deal that brought together one of the largest multi-family offices and a Portland-based investment consulting firm.  Being based here in Portland, Oregon we were naturally interested in the deal and now RIAbiz offers a more detailed look at how the acquisition fits into BMO Group’s Harris MyCFO business and how that multi-family office has evolved since its beginnings as simply MyCFO without the Harris Savings banking platform.

In a business where revenue is generated by a percentage of assets under management, it’s only natural that advisors seek to target clients with considerable assets. And indeed, some of the industry’s hottest firms, including Dynasty Financial Partners and HighTower Advisors LLC, flaunt the fact that they are attracting high-producing, corner-office wirehouse teams. Top firms in major wealth markets such as New York, the San Francisco Bay Area and Texas are increasingly competing in the ultrahigh-net-worth market for clients with at least $25 million in investible assets or $100 million in net worth.

But as a number of recent deals have underscored, the UHNW market is being convulsed by the same forces all RIAs are facing: consolidation, issues of size and scale, service offerings and fierce competition for market share.

The latest salvo in the high-end market was fired earlier this month by BMO Financial Group (Bank of Montreal), which agreed to buy top-tier investment consulting firm CTC Consulting LLC — a familiar name to RIAs from its days as part of U.S. Trust — and combine it with Harris myCFO Inc., the financial conglomerate’s Chicago-based multifamily office, which has approximately $18 billion in AUM.

While further realignment is expected, it remains to be seen whether the CTC-BMO deal is a harbinger of things to come.

Some in the industry point to CTC’s history to argue that its most recent deal will not serve as a template for others. Source

 

Tags: Harris MyCFO CTC Consulting, Harris MyCFO CTC Consulting Merger, Harris MyCFO CTC Consulting Acquisition, Harris MyCFO CTC Consulting RIA, Harris MyCFO CTC Consulting Family Office, Harris MyCFO CTC Consulting AUM, Harris MyCFO CTC Consulting contact, Harris MyCFO CTC Consulting buyout, Harris MyCFO CTC Consulting deal, Harris MyCFO CTC Consulting multi-family office

There is a new family office focused on serving physicians exclusively, the Physicians Family Office. Here’s more on this new family office from a press release:

The average investor has to work smarter and harder by working longer hours and, according to Business Wire, 50% of the population must postpone retirement. Wealthy, successful people who are informed about the latest trends in technology, travel, lifestyle, and entrepreneurship have never heard of the family office. So Steven Abernathy and Brian Luster are addressing this, one investor at a time.

The Hedge Fund Managers turned physicians’ advocates say that saving just 25% of a $350,000 annual income should yield over $7 million by age 65. For many high income earners this is not the case—their wealth, the greatest resource outside of their health, is squandered due to poor planning, bad advice from advisors who are not professional investors, working with non-fiduciary entities, and other circumstances not serving their best interests.

The world’s most prosperous families of the last 300+ years knew how to guard against this. They stopped taking advice from salespeople and spared no expense when it came to finding and employing the best possible team to preserve, protect, and grow their wealth. In 2010 Paul Sullivan wrote an article for Dealbook announcing Oprah Winfrey’s decision to set up a Family Office for hers.

In addition to privacy, having “unconflicted advice” is what investors, such as Ms. Winfrey, and those running Family Offices strive for. While in the past it remained out of reach for all but the families with $100 million or more, today, the first Physician Family Office (PFO) has revolutionized the concept by making it available to physicians and their families with as little as $5 million.

“The Physician Family Office gives doctors access to the tools and advice used by the richest dynasties of the last several hundred years, and, they have the opportunity to build generational wealth by receiving unbiased guidance,” says Steven Abernathy. Source

 

Tags: physicians family office, physicians family office steve Abernathy, physicians family office Paul Sullivan, physicians family office doctors, physicians family office contact, physicians family office clients, physicians family office aum

What’s the biggest challenge an investor faces today?

Which asset class do you think holds the most opportunity currently?

Would you change the hedge fund industry and, if so, how?

What’s the most successful investment you have ever made?

I know when I see a good investment opportunity because….

Who do you most respect in the hedge fund industry & why?

Tell us a little known fact about yourself 

If you could have dinner with anyone (dead or alive), who would it be and what question would you ask?

Press release: Northern Trust Adds London-Based Managing Director to Build Global Family Office Team

Northern Trust selected Daniel F. Lindley to fill the role of Managing Director, Global Family & Private Investment Offices Group — EMEA and APAC.

In his new role, Lindley will manage the expansion of Northern Trust’s business with family and private investment offices in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific Region, and will have operational oversight of the group’s activities in London and Guernsey. Lindley will also continue in his role as Chief Fiduciary Officer for Northern Trust’s Guernsey trust company, Northern Trust Fiduciary Services (Guernsey) Limited.

Lindley will report to J. Jeffery Kauffman, Chief Executive Officer, Global Family & Private Investment Offices. He will work closely with Caroline Devlin, Director of International Solutions on business strategy and expansion. Charlotte Denton, Managing Director, London, and Lesley Hodgson, Managing Director, Guernsey, will report to Lindley.

“Northern Trust is well positioned to grow its family and private investment office services in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific Region given our outstanding capabilities in asset servicing and fiduciary management,” Kauffman said. “New and existing clients will benefit from Dan’s insightful leadership and deep expertise in these areas.”

Prior to joining Northern Trust in 2005, Lindley was managing director and trust counsel at U.S. Trust Company of Delaware. He was also responsible for the national development of U.S. Trust’s Delaware trust business.

Lindley spent 25 years in private law practice in Delaware, beginning his career in 1975 with Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP and later as a partner in the Delaware offices of Duane Morris LLP and Reed Smith LLP. During that time, he assisted institutional clients with fiduciary product development and fiduciary litigation, as well as the enactment of Delaware legislation dealing with fiduciary law. In that role, he was the principal author in 1997 of the Qualified Dispositions in Trust Act, Delaware’s asset protection trust statute, and the 1995 legislation repealing Delaware’s Rule Against Perpetuities.

Lindley holds a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and a bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Williams College. Admitted to the bars of the Supreme Court of the State of Delaware and the United States Supreme Court, Lindley is a member of the Asset Protection Planning Committee of the Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section of the American Bar Association. He is also a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), the Estate Planning Council of Delaware, and the Estates and Trusts Section of the Delaware State Bar Association. Lindley is Chairman of the Executive Board of the Blood Bank of Delmarva, Inc. Source

tags: Northern Trust, Northern Trust Family Office, Northern Trust Global Family Office, Northern Trust Family Office Manager, Northern Trust Mult-Family Office, Northern Trust Daniel F. Lindley

Family offices are seeking a benefit from hedge funds and private equity funds that was once almost exclusively reserved for institutional investors: lower fees.  According to a recent family office panel, fees are becoming an ever-important issue for family offices who have sought to attain higher returns through investing in multiple managers (and thus incurring multiple sets of fees) making the management and performance fees an important bargaining chip for managers looking to attract family office capital.

Absolute Return magazine, which reported on the event, quotes Bob Borden of Delegate Partners, a family office in North Carolina, explaining, “Costs matter more than they ever have.”  Family offices have been having some success in inducing managers to lower fees, with some family office managers claiming single digit performance fees (a far cry from the industry standard 20%).  This is an important shift in the LP-GP structure as investors gain the upper hand in some  cases over capital-hungry managers willing to slice fees in order to attract family office investors.

Source

Tags: limited partners, family office fees, family office management, hedge fund fees, performance fees, investor fees, 2 and 20 fees, management fees, family office fee structure, private equity fees, hedge fund manager fees, investor relations

One of the valuable services that family offices provide their clients with is financial education and wealth management strategies.  Pathstone, a U.S.-based multi-family office, has taken this service a step further with Path2Responsibility.  Path2Responsibility is a program developed by Pathstone that boosts young next-generations’ knowledge of finance and leadership.

Path2Responsibility will target children as young as three years old through young adulthood using interactive games, workbooks and other tools.  This is just one more way in which family offices are working to help improve the lives of their family clients.

A new programme to boost young next-gens’ knowledge of finance and leadership has been launched.

Developed by US-based multi family office Pathstone, the programme will use interactive games, workbooks and family meetings to help high net worth families teach next-gens how to manage substantial wealth.

Steve Braverman, managing director of the family office, said in a statement that the course, called Path2Responsibility, will target children “from three years old through young adulthood”.

Amy Lemasters, associate at Pathstone, added that it is “critically important” that younger members are able to understand financial terms from a very young age.

“It’s never been more crucial for current and future generations to become financially literate and involved in making thoughtful, well-informed decisions,” she said.  Source

 

tags: Pathstone family office, Pathstone family offices, Multi-family office, Pathstone Multi-family office, Pathstone path2responsibility, Pathstone financial, Pathstone wealth management

A book co-authored by a family office manager recently debuted; The Seven Pearls of Financial Wisdom is a book written by Carol Pepper and Camilla Webster.  Carol Pepper is an award winning high net worth wealth manager and founder of Pepper International: a family office for families with $100 million and more.  It is becoming increasingly common for family offices to write books and articles that add further exposure to our industry and show the valuable services that family offices provide to their clients.

My co-author Carol Pepper is an award winning high net worth wealth manager and founder of Pepper International: a family office for families with $100 million and more. Together we used my background covering wealth, billionaires and Wall Street and Carol’s expertise running Pepper International to share some of the secrets of the very rich with you.

A family office offers the Rolls Royce of wealth management services, integrated advice on investment management, tax planning, estate planning, philanthropy and financial education for children. Billionaires who have family offices include both media mogual Oprah Winfrey and Google founder Sergey Brin.

According to the 2011 Multifamily Office Study, conducted by the Family Wealth Alliance, the top seventy-two multi-family offices manage a staggering $320 billion in the United States; the average amount of assets for each client is $48.4 million.

One of the goals in writing the book was to clear away the nonsense and the fear around investing for readers. This is not a mysterious science and there are long trusted principles that can support your mission to build your own wealth, which the very rich benefit from all the time from revocable living trusts to financial planning. The Family Wealth Alliance 2010 Multifamily Office Study showed that 97 percent of families offices offer financial planning services and that 77 percent of their clients take advantage of them. Yet in a small poll published in 2010 conducted by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. only 28% of Americans surveyed said that they used a financial planner.  Source

 

Tags: family office book, family office books, books by family office executives, family office author, family office writer, family office guide, The Seven Pearls of Financial Wisdom Book, The Seven Pearls of Financial Wisdom Carol Pepper, Carol Pepper family office, Pepper International, Pepper International family office, Pepper International Carol Pepper

oXYGen Financial Adds Three Financial Professionals to Grow Family Office

The following is a press release on a family office in Atlanta, oXYGen Financial Family Office

Three new experienced financial advisors Alex Watson, Sara Watson, and Thomas Kettering join the oXYGen Financial team

ATLANTA, GA (MMD Newswire) April 25, 2012 — Atlanta based oXYGen Financial, a growing leader in financial services for Generation X and Y individuals and business owners, has hired three new experienced financial advisors to continue to grow the modern day family office model which has been gaining interest within the industry. Recently, the firm was featured as a cover story in Investment News magazine. oXYGen Financial hired a dynamic husband and wife team Alex and Sara Watson, and acquired Thomas Kettering who is a seasoned representative specializing in financial workplace education.

“Our modern day family office concept is proving to be very exciting both for representatives and clients within the X and Y generation.” said Kile Lewis, co-CEO and founder of oXYGen Financial. “Many financial firms are only focused on trying to get big rollovers from those 60 and above who are retiring from their jobs. In fact, most companies are requiring minimums from clients which we think is just unheard of in this day and age. The whole notion of retirement is changing for the X and Y Generation.” said Mr. Lewis.

Alex and Sara Watson began their financial services careers with Ameriprise Financial and then worked with Allstate. Since, Mr. and Mrs. Watson represent the modern day married couple within the X and Y Generation, they thought oXYGen Financial would be the perfect fit for their practice. “So often the X and Y generations are overlooked in the financial services industry. It is an unfortunate oversight because these people are working hard to make a difference in our future.” said Sara Watson. “(Many Gen XY people) have seen older family members struggle to achieve what was once considered the “American Dream,” and are determined to forge their own paths to financial freedom.” said Mrs. Watson. The Watson’s believe they can help couples today who work together owning a business or work together from home with today’s ever changing work environment. The financial planning issues related to these Gen X and Y couples are different and unique than most normal financial situations. “We have experienced firsthand the fun and family atmosphere that oXYGen shares with everyone that walks in the door, we knew this was the right place for us and our clients.” said Mr. Watson. “The focus on the X and Y generations will be the future of our industry.”

Thomas Kettering has been doing his own personal financial planning for decades, and spent the majority of his career working for Ameriprise Financial. Mr. Kettering adds veteran experience to the marketing department of oXYGen Financial and will focus on developing a series of workplace financial education seminars for small and medium sized businesses. “The ability to bring individual and business financial needs under one roof through Oxygen Financial’s Modern Family Office was one of the more important factors in my decision to join Oxygen Financial.:” said Mr. Kettering. “There also is a very strong sense of community responsibility and what gets me up excited to start each day is my involvement in the development and implementation of our series of educational interactive workshops.” oXYGen Financial plans to launch a series of financial education workshops geared at the X and Y generations in the work place later this year.

oXYGen Financial was founded in 2008 by Ted Jenkin and Kile Lewis who saw a need for an independently owned modern day family office that represents Generation X and Y individuals and small business owners for financial planning, investments, insurance, and accounting services. The company has experienced over 70% growth in the past year, and has plans to open offices over the next twelve months within metro Atlanta and outside the state of Georgia in other locations. To learn more about oXYGen Financial, go to www.oxygenfinancial.net or read its nationally recognized personal finance blog at www.yoursmartmoneymoves.com.

For information: www.oxygenfinancial.net

Tags: oXYGen Financial, oXYGen Financial family office, oXYGen Financial press release, news oXYGen Financial, family office news

I just read a great interview on Business Insider with a former trader who made her way through the financial world, climbing from a floor trader to a family office manager in an impressive career.  This story highlights the unique career path that many family office managers take.  Some family office managers come from accounting, law or wealth management, or others, like the woman profiled in this story, climb the rungs of the finance world to manage a family office.

Having transitioned from floor trader to day trader to hedge fund manager, DA is now spreading her wings in the discreet world of family office management — hence the code name for this interview — where capital allocation runs into the hundreds of millions to billions.
In addition to all the above, DA is a close and dear friend of many years.
So without further ado…
JACK: Why don’t we start at the beginning. How did you get involved in trading?
DEEP ALPHA: Trading was not on my radar in college. I started out studying psychology. I had always been fascinated by human behavior.

But I was disappointed with psychology. It was taught, back then, with an emphasis on dysfunctional traits — slapping on labels with all kinds of scary names. I decided to shift to an area that explored perception, consciousness, and how we know what we know.
I went into a major that was built around general semantics — studying how we think through language — and general systems theory, which helps you think about how systems are organized. How the cells in the body organize themselves… how bees organize themselves… how humans organize themselves in thinking and in groups, and so on.

That combination was very interesting. And then I had the good fortune of spending a summer at a Buddhist school in Colorado, the Naropa Institute. This school was known mainly for cultural arts and poetry. But, the summer I attended, a group of neuroscientists got together at the Naropa Institute to share ideas. They decided to turn those ideas into a course, to study things like the circularity of the mind, how consciousness is created, and so on.

Read the full interview.

 

Tags: family office career, family office manager, family office management, family office career path, family office careers, how to start a family office, how to manage a family office, family office management, family office career tips, how to work at a family office, deep alpha family office