Best Practices For Family Offices, Advisors - UHNW Institute Conference

Tom Burroughes

16 June 2021

North American family office figures - including family members involved directly with these institutions - held in-depth discussions on the challenges facing them and their client families at the recent . Explaining the ten domains (see FWR interview on the model), Grubman noted that advisors and families have already begun actively embracing the model since rollout of the new paradigm last spring. His presentation was followed by a series of breakout sessions on aspects of the ten domains. The discussion post-breakout set a pattern of lively engagement by participants that continued throughout the remaining two days of the conference.

The next session was moderated by Bill Woodson, a UHNW Institute founder and head of Wealth Advisory and Family Office Services at .

Clements pointed out that family offices require strong leadership to help build a healthy culture. She noted that true integration – carrying on from the previous panel’s main takeaway – wasn’t the same thing as simply co-locating services under one roof. Recognizing that “integration is fundamental, but expensive,” she nevertheless advocated for the deep benefits to the family over the long term.

Panelists discussed whether FOs and other institutions should move from an AuM pricing model toward retainer or hybrid pricing models that made more sense but, as emphasized earlier, were harder to explain to many clients. Rogers argued that most AuM fees were negotiated between the firm and client and were not set in stone. He underscored that retainer pricing is more art than science, and that firms might either overprice non-investment services initially or potentially face scope creep over time. Prostano said he thought many FOs still used asset-based fees and were giving other services away for free. However, he clearly stated that the future was ultimately with hybrid pricing.

By the end of the conference, many senior industry experts had weighed in on the cutting-edge issues of the present and the future. The UHNW Institute plans to follow up with more events tailored to its mission of educating and empowering families as well as family offices.