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Personal & Financial Advisory Services
The concept of a Family Office is well known in the Western economies but perhaps less understood in India and South Asia. Traditionally, family Offices are private wealth management advisory firms that serve high-net-worth clients managing finances and investments, including budgeting, insurance, charitable giving, family-owned businesses and wealth transfer and tax services. These services can be extended to include family responsibilities, the education of siblings, overseas property and sheltered interests on a worldwide basis. Perhaps the most unique is a ‘concierge’ service that will take care of the peripheral problems of high net worth individuals with properties and assets all over the world.
Typically and traditionally there are two types of Family Office, a single family office (SFO) and a multi family office (MFO). Single family offices serve one wealthy family, while multi family offices operate more like a traditional private wealth management practice with multiple clients. The reasoning behind the formation of a Multi family office are largely economic as well as spreading the investment in technology and consultants among several high net worth individuals.
We have incorporated all of the aspects of a traditional Multi Family Office (MFO) whilst at the same time being aware of, and sensitive to, the particular circumstances arising from the emerging economies of India and Asia and the challenges this presents to high net worth individuals and families from these regions.
The prominent trends fuelling the growth of family offices are the fact that in most developed nations, the wealthy are accumulating assets more rapidly than the middle class. At the same time many emerging economies are thriving, with annual growth rates of between 4% and 8%. Experts note that by 2015-2020, China’s upper class will be larger than America’s middle class. Growth countries such as China, Brazil, India, and Russia will ensure that the family office format of wealth management services continues to grow in popularity over the next five to seven years.
As populations amass greater wealth, large wealth management firms are competing on a cost basis and moving a larger portion of their core services on-line. Whilst the average person might appreciate saving hundreds or even thousands of dollars in fees each year, many affluent individuals would much rather spend $20,000 to $100,000 a year to ensure that experienced professionals are managing their investments and their private affairs to fit their specific personal and financial goals as well as understanding their individual levels of risk tolerance.
There are no set rules as to what services a family office may provide. We remain completely open to listen to our client’s specific and individual requirements. Typically there are common investment and family related services that are usually provided, many of these advanced services are not available within the private banking or traditional wealth management setting, simply because they are affordable only for the most affluent clientele.
We offer experienced advice on constructing or selecting alternative investment portfolios and products using our extensive network of consultants and relying on our deep understanding and experience of looking after high net worth clients from the emerging economies of India, Asia and the Middle East. We offer a complete, well-developed alternative investment platform on a global basis. We stress the importance of ‘relationship management’ rather than ‘product management’, which is at the heart of our approach to our clients. We look to engineer ‘partnership’ solutions that combine flexibility of using our own expertise along with an extensive network of trusted advisors to provide a total solution to a family’s requirements.
Some expanded examples of the advisory services we provide might include introductions to the relevant country-specific expert or advice on the relevance to our client’s portfolio of any of the following -
- Flexible deposit products in a growing range of currencies.
- Short and long term lending solutions to include property financing solutions and lending against alternative investment products as well as lifestyle lending
- Treasury products including hedging and foreign exchange management
- On-line accesses to information as the family office and/or as individual family members require it.
- Portfolio management advice, though only as an overlay for the family office’s in-house management administration for a range of asset holding structures, from foundations for charitable giving, through to Trusts for generational planning to companies and segregated asset vehicles for asset holding. This extends further to the administration of the client’s own private trust company and can also lead to providing support in the area of family governance.
- Custody of international assets across a widening spectrum of investment types.
- Administration of stock exchange listed corporate structures evolved from clients businesses and asset holding needs.
- An awareness of the family’s interest in philanthropy, fine arts, and other less standard and arguably non-financial areas, which nonetheless need to be supported by financial planning within a coherent overall wealth management strategy.
- The risk Management element, be that specific and insurable, or of a more general nature requiring risk control measures and changes in the way services and communications are delivered.
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