Modern Family Office

Innovative technology promotes the integration of outside financial advisers, improves communication, and heightens cybersecurity for family offices.

Early in the history of family offices, there was a misconception that the purpose of the investment-focused family office was to exclude outside wealth managers. However, most family offices embrace a collaborative approach to serving their families’ investments, using a combination of in-house wealth management and outside wealth managers, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that the family is getting the best and most tailored investment advice for their circumstances, regardless of where that manager may be. The Summa Group of Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. is pleased to work as an outside wealth manager to many family office clients. The key for us in achieving collaborative service with a family office client has been the adoption of high-end information-sharing technology.

“One frustration that pushed my family office clients away from outside wealth managers was inefficient access to information,” says Elizabeth Glasgow, a private-client attorney for ultra-high-net-worth families in Los Angeles and New York. “Clients with substantial wealth and relationships with more than one financial adviser would receive different account statements, product analyses, or spreadsheets from each adviser, but with no mechanism to assess the performance of their investments holistically, making it difficult to determine if there were inappropriate risks when considering the investments across the different managers.”

The Summa Group and other leading wealth management teams that work with family office clients have created innovative information-sharing platforms to remove barriers to information between outside wealth managers and the family office. Such technology consolidates and provides immediate access not just to the investments we manage, but for all of the outside wealth managers’ investments and the family office’s direct investments. While family offices at any stage benefit from this broad information-sharing approach, it has been particularly well received by family offices in the early stages that do not yet have their own platforms.

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_{Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. does not provide legal or tax advice, but will work with your other advisors to assure your needs are addressed. The opinions of the author expressed herein are subject to change without notice and do not necessarily reflect those of the Firm. Additional information is available upon request. Investors should review potential investments with their financial advisor for the appropriateness of that investment with their investment objectives, risk tolerances and financial circumstances.}