What is Family Office?

It is said that you need to experience certain things to understand them thoroughly. Any office is one such place where certain things are inevitable. With an office comes discipline, skills of the staff working there, equipment in an office, office ambiance, processes etc. An office works efficiently by having all the above things in place. Results of any activity are profound with the help of all the above parameters.

Our personal lives (usually) have no scope for an Office to be a part of it to handle the matters related to the family. Decisions relating to family matters are supposed to be taken by family members together. These decisions can be about the marriage of a family member, about an important thing to be purchased, about the major decisions in business, about court matters, or it can be about money and investments, or there can be some more to this list. All these major decisions are taken by the members of the family by discussing the topic with each other thoroughly.

As we are progressing, with the advent of technology, the day to day living is becoming easy. We have all modern amenities ready to serve us. But with this progressive life, has some curse with it. Most of us are not finding enough time for personal and family activities from our daily professional routine. The family members are not able to get together to discuss important family issues.

If a family or the member of that family has free time for the family matters, they lack the expertise to decide and execute important decisions. Though the internet has made all the information readily available to us, it is very difficult to separate right and wrong information. There is a lot of misleading information available on the web. So, this information may not always be useful to take the right decision. A family is not expected to be a disciplined entity like an Office. You can’t expect family members to deal professionally with each other. It also means that family members may not be able to professionally decide on family matters without being emotional about the task at hand. This probably requires someone else who is not emotionally attached to the task at hand and who is skilled enough in the matter. This brings us to one point – there may be the need of one such entity which can take care of the family matters, decisions that are professional, unbiased, without any emotions into it and involving the skills.

Here is the solution. Those families which are finding it difficult to manage their Personal Finance and related activities can look forward to a Family Office to- plan, manage and execute all such important practical tasks.

The tasks liked Financial Planning, Wealth Management, Succession planning, Insurance planning, Accounting, Debt (loan) Management are interrelated. But if the Family Office is not in place, the family has to deal with a different office (and different person) for each of the above services. It is obvious that any family would not find it convenient in dealing with all these offices separately. So basically, Family Office is an entity that provides together, the services of an Investment Advisor, Financial Planner, Accountant, Lawyer, Insurance Advisor etc.

Though the concept of Family office is relatively new in India, it is being offered in many cities, especially in Metros. However, most of these family offices serve only to Ultra HNI Families. These Family Offices working for Ultra HNI families focus prominently on Investment part of it. They usually advise families on non-traditional investment alternatives such as Private Equity, Start-Up funding, Alternate Investment Funds and so on.

When a Family Office service is provided to more than one family it is called as Multi-Family Office. If a Family Office provides service only to one (Very Wealthy) Family it is called as Single-Family Office. Single Family Office needs is affordable only to a few who’s who in the country. In some cases of Ultra HNI Families; the family themselves manage the Family Office. They recruit skilled staff for managing their Family Office.

The point is; does only Ultra HNI and HNI clients need these services which are provided by a Family Office. Or Higher middle Class and Middle Class may also need these services? The fact is; every family small or big; HNI or middle-class, needs these services. The issues is not many such service providers (Family Offices) are available today. Especially Tier 2 cities are missing these services big time.