The Single Family Investment Office Today: A primer on structuring an investment office to achieve family objectives and societal value

Industry Agenda paper dated August 2016 on more than 50 structured interviews with family members and family office CEOs or CIOs plus an anonymous survey completed by 81 families, with responses received between 9 December 2015 and 25 April 2016; 76 per cent of the families are in the USD 1 billion and above wealth bracket, 51 per cent are based outside the United States and Canada and they represent more than USD 200 billion of aggregate wealth. More than 90 per cent cite wealth management as the top objective and almost 60 per cent rely on at least two different models for evaluating and managing investments. The headline governance finding is stated flatly as "Investment governance is a family matter. Decision-making almost always involves family members, even when there is a formal investment committee"; the authors state that legal structures, tax and family governance were kept out of scope.