What does a typical Family Wealth Practices client look like?

Clients often consider an MFO when there is a change in their lives or in the lives of their key advisors and they:

• Need to manage their cash more effectively (often from the sale of a business).
• Are having greater demands placed on their time as required by family members to manage the family’s personal assets and the demands are detracting from effective running of the business.
• Need to be sure funds are available even in difficult times.
• Want to avoid wading through the often confusing and conflicting information provided by bankers, brokers and other advisors; The needs of a growing number of family members, requiring increasingly diverse asset management services, can no longer be effectively met by family’s existing resources.
• Want the financial information they receive consolidated and organized differently to better manage investment decisions.
• Need objective, professional advice to decide what will best fit into their current asset allocations or estate plans.
• Desire privacy, security, competency and trust in their relationships.
• Have become multigenerational; the expertise/involvement of the founding patriarch/matriarch is no longer available; the next generation is not willing/capable of taking on asset management responsibility.

Families considering an MFO will likely have a total net worth in excess of five million dollars, own multiple properties, may travel extensively, have charitable inclinations, and have a desire to see future generations flourish under the concept that financial wealth is only a tool that, when used properly, can produce exception individuals, family members and members of society.

Factors we consider before and after accepting a new client engagement include:

1. How a family defines shared ownership goals (future together)
2. How well the family identifies and mitigates family risk
3. How well the family manages family transitions
4. How the family reinvests its human, intellectual, financial and social capital

Questions we may ask include:

1. Why does the family want to stay together?
2. What does the family want to accomplish with its legacy?
3. What do family members fear the most?
4. What can be done to mitigate the risks attached to those fears?