Generational changes. Global mobility. Technological advancement. Farnoush Farsiar writes for EU Today that these are only a handful of major changes that affect family offices and fundamentally threaten their operational structures.
Family offices cater to the increasingly mobile, tech-savvy and younger generations. Every client, no matter their age, have become concerned, regardless of financial status and in managing their own investments. That means they want more information and involvement and not just an investment manager to manage.
These changes come at a time of unprecedented political and financial turmoil. If an office attempts to retain its old methods they will find it abandoned by the very people they supposed to be advising. They need to change to be more entrepreneurial and provide the value offering for UHNWIs.
Family offices differ greatly in size and scale, but regardless of this, they should prioritise agility as well as streamlining their processes, rather than trying to be experts in everything. A smaller group of advisors who can quickly implement new technology and add external specialists when required will ultimately provide an improved service for customers. These changes make it necessary for the lines between private and family offices banks blur. The best banks will maintain the trust and loyalty of their family offices while staying in the forefront in terms of technology and finding deals.
You’ll be successful if are able to leverage traditional methods, such as reputation and network-based approaches to dealsourcing while also employing online methods to find opportunities and deals. Wealth managers can make use of online deal sourcing platforms to find deals and opportunities. They’re much more convenient than the large, cumbersome banks who are stuck in large-firm bureaucracy. They allow dealmakers to review and access a huge variety of deals at the same time, which is a significant saving of time and resources.
Wealthica is another service online that has revolutionized how a family offices interact with their clients. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/company/10947406 will automatically combine investments from different sources. Customers can keep in touch with their investments. This is much more efficient than when wealth management provided only occasional updates on the status and location of their clients money.
Of course the tools are just tools – the methods that wealth managers can enhance the speed and efficiency with that they function. The investment strategies they employ is the primary element. It is crucial to mix the traditional and the innovative. For instance keep searching for real estate deals, while also looking into investing in areas that aren’t as well-known, such as food security or climate science. Impact investing has certainly “arrived” in the family office industry. According to the UBS Global Family Office Report 2018, one third of family-owned businesses are engaged in impact investing and the majority of them are planning to expand their involvement in the near future. While there are some challenges regarding the field like difficulty measuring impact as well as due diligence HNWIs/UHNWIs of the future will expect family officers to have the ability to identify the right opportunities. Plato Capital, my own boutique investment bank, draws from the experience of its founders from large banks and the technology industry to offer investment guidance that is entrepreneurial in direction. Our local expertise and connections allow us to assist our clients reduce risk while increasing their capital returns.
By blending the old and the modern, adjusting to the changing needs of the young generation, and being prepared to be risk-averse with their own strategies and structures Wealth managers of all kinds are able to remain relevant and thrive even in the midst of difficult times.