At Blackwood’s recent AGM, advisors and faculty were discussing how much confusion there is around the definition of family office. Blackwood Family Enterprise Services had been listed as a multi-family office in Canadian Family Offices . We are not a family office, but we certainly enjoyed the conversation that the article sparked. And we were not the only ones. The list kindled sufficient debate that Canadian Family Offices began an excellent series of articles exploring the meaning of family office.
Confusion over what constitutes a family office is understandable. There is no widely accepted definition and no agreed upon standards or industry accreditations to be a family office. At the same time, there may be a perceived advantage for firms to identify themselves as providing family office services.
No two Single-Family Offices (SFOs) look alike. They serve single families, entirely devoted to managing that family’s wealth and tailored to its specific needs. Multi-family Offices (MFOs) serve multiple families, offering integrated services, not just asset management. But what services? Who are the experts providing it? What is the complexity of the families they serve, which is really another way of saying what is the net worth of the family? As net worth rises, complex needs multiply.
Moira Somers, one of Blackwood’s founding partners and the Ultra High Net Worth (UHNW) Institute’s Chair of the Family-Advisory Relationships Domain suggested the UHNW ‘s model of Ten Domains of Family Wealth as essential to understanding the concept of a family office in an interview with Canadian Family Offices. The model defines the 9 areas that a family office should be serving: the tactical domains of Financial/Investment, Estate/Legal, Social Impact/Philanthropy, Risk Management, and the personal side domains of Governance, Leadership/Transition, Learning/Next Gen Development, Family Dynamics, Health/Well-Being. Most importantly, the model sets a tenth domain, Family Advisory Relationships, smack dab in the middle. Dr.Somers points out that it is the integration of families and advisors that best serves the family.
Is a clear definition important? Only insofar as there are families with complex needs who have to understand what those needs are and how to meet them. Families must evaluate a fit between their needs, and the entity serving those needs, regardless of how the entity labels itself. The UHNW Institute model is instructive in helping a family evaluate what services a multi-family office says that it offers. But looking for the integration of those services is more important in determining how well the office will meet a family’s needs. An MFO does not have to serve all 9 domains in-house, but it must have a proven ability to access expertise in all domains and integrate that expertise.
Which is where Blackwood comes in. We work with family offices to address the personal domain needs of their families and to help integrate services. And we work with enterprising families, to help them determine if a family office is the right fit for them, as well as to help set up their own family office or find a multi-family office that best suits their needs.
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