Why Richard C. Wilson Sees Family Offices Growing

From Zurich, Richard C. Wilson introduces a topic he plans to address while chairing a conference on ultra high net worth investments and hedge funds.

Richard C. Wilson outlines why he sees the family office industry continuing to grow. He draws on his work with family offices and an interview series to identify four forces behind that expansion. Wilson expects the growth to continue, a forecast he presents as his own view.

In this video: Richard C. Wilson (Conference chairman and speaker)

What they said

1. Lower client thresholds. Richard says many family offices used to require 30 or 50 million dollars. He says a good percentage now require 10 or 20 million dollars, which puts their services within reach of more people.
2. Wealth firms change labels. Richard says some wealth management firms now describe themselves as family offices after setting new minimums of 10 or 20 million dollars. He says 90% of their clients still have 500 thousand dollar, 1 million dollar or 3 million dollar accounts.
3. Bank staff go independent. Richard says restrictions on outside specialists can frustrate bank and trust clients. He describes some clients supporting an independent multi-family office after growing frustrated with those limits.
4. Wealth and awareness grow. Richard attributes expansion to more people reaching substantial wealth and greater public awareness of family offices.

In their words

"the costs of compliance are definitely going up"

"it causes a little bit of confusion in the industry"

Why it matters if you are building or preserving great wealth

Richard connects rising anti-fraud and anti-bribery compliance costs with lower minimums. In his account, a firm's access threshold can reflect the cost of running its multi-family office model as much as the wealth it serves.