In our 12th episode of the Family Office Vlog Series, Asena CEO Peter Harper comments on how wealth management plays a central and critical role within a family office.

 

 

Transcript:

Peter Harper: Hey guys. Peter Harper, Managing Director and CEO of the Asena Family Office. For those of you who are not familiar with the business, we advise foreign founders, private clients, and family offices on U.S. direct investments and mergers & acquisitions.

Peter Harper: So, today, in the next installment of the Family Office Series, I wanted to talk about family office wealth management. So, in the previous vlogs, you’ve seen me talk about the role and structure of a family office, what it is, and why it’s a meaningful structure. Today, I wanted to hone in on one very specific element of a family office, being Family Office Wealth Management.

Peter Harper: So, just to recap, a single-family office is a structure established by a family of significant means, whether that’s a family that has intergenerational wealth transference happening or where an individual has realized a substantial amount of liquidity, post-transactional liquidity, and they are looking to establish a framework whereby they consolidate all the things they need to run the financial and non-financial aspects of their life. So, generally, you will see some sort of C-Suite infrastructure: so CEO, CFO, CIO, maybe Chief Legal Officer, and then administrative staff to support the vision of the family, which may be economic or altruistic. It also will deal with all of the administration associated with sort of non-core financial assets; so, operating assets like, you know, expensive cars, boats, planes, etc.

Peter Harper: A multi-family office, which is what the Asena Family Office is, is a fractional offering over a single-family office. So, a business whereby we offer fractional investment, legal, accounting, tax, and estate management services for families that are either not at sufficient scale to warrant a single-family office; so the overhead associated with all those things, or have just elected they don’t want the operational complexity of running a massive team to look after their wealth.

Peter Harper: In the context of wealth management and family offices generally, the investment aspects of a family office, so the wealth management aspect; that’s just a vertical; a need of the family, right? They will have a stated financial objective, right, and they will have internal investment folks to help run and manage that, or they’ll engage with outside people. So, independent wealth management businesses like the Asena Family Office to manage that aspect on their behalf.

Peter Harper: So, the major difference between a family office is that it will be broader in its service offering or functionality and focus not only on financial aspects but all the non-financial aspects the family needs to run its life and account for its life. Whereas, within a pure wealth management business or if someone is offering pure wealth management services to family offices, it is that it’s simply looking to advise the family on their core public and private investments. Right, guys; hope this is helpful. Cheers.

 

Do you have questions about Family Office Wealth Management? Contact one of our Asena consultants for more information.

–Peter Harper