Redefining the Family Office
By Cynthia Calderon, Michelle Young and Maya Boguslavsky
*Published on San Francisco Business Times, October 30, 2020
Since the 1800s with the J.P. Morgans and Rockefellers, families of great wealth have looked to private, single-family offices to help manage and administer their complex array of assets and protect their privacy. Beyond traditional investments of stocks and bonds, managing tangible assets such as residences, yachts, planes, and charitable pursuits require the family office’s ongoing attention—especially when shared among multiple generations and family members.
Today, family offices fall into three categories:
A single-family office dedicated to one family
A multi-family office that services a limited number of families
A retail or institutional family office, imbedded in large commercial investment firms
Redefining the family office for today and the future has required considerations for the success of effective wealth stewardship, attention to culture, relationships, communication, and the sharing of information with members geographically distant and generationally different.
The redefined single-family or multi-family office provides a team you whole-heartedly trust to oversee all the complicated matters attached to significant wealth and are without the conflict of managing your investment strategy. In many ways, it is going back to the focus of the early family office of the J.P. Morgans and Rockefellers.
With a dedicated family office, you have one place to get the help your family needs in an intimate, confidential manner. You receive objective, transparent and consolidated performance reporting on all your investments, liquid and illiquid alike. Often, wealthy families have multiple investment advisors and many private investments and cannot see performance on their entire asset structure. A dedicated family office serves as the central point for the family and can be a buffer between family members and the outside world. Family office executives and staff are responsible for initiating ideas, informing and educating families, and executing family members’ decisions. To do their job well, the family office must regularly engage with family members to build relationships and understand motivations, passions, intentions, and desired outcomes.
As you look for the right family office, take into consideration the additional experience and expertise the team has beyond investments, such as:
Managing and integrating all the professional providers involved in your wealth management – CPAs, lawyers, business consultants, investment managers, insurance agents, bankers, and more.
Updating your estate planning due to changes in tax laws or new people joining your family.
Managing cash flow and financial modeling.
Monitoring spending, so you know what you can comfortably afford.
Accounting for multiple family entities such as LLCs, S-Corps, family limited partnerships, and trusts.
Reviewing financial statements.
Ensuring tax compliance for investments across all family entities.
Assembling personal financial information as needed for bank financing
Family offices fill broader roles now more than ever before and take into account the family culture and cohesion. The redefined family office requires professionals with expertise and backgrounds in the transfer of family wealth, stewardship, and multi-generational communication. Serving as the family information hub, the family office today provides education and training, often serves as a buffer, and bridges the gaps to bring together and help maintain the evolving path for family wealth succession.
Transcend Wealth Partners is a boutique family office without the conflict of providing investment advisory services. Because we don’t offer investment advisory services, our clients are free to manage their investments independently or use any investment firm for advisory services. We provide objective, transparent and consolidated reporting.
Designed as a private family office, we customize our services to each client family’s needs.
With Transcend Wealth Partners, our focus is on building relationships with family members and providing the peace of mind that comes from knowing you have a dedicated, reliable, and trustworthy team in place to protect your interests.
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San Francisco Business Times