Are You Rich Enough for a (Single) Family Office?

Abstract

Are you rich enough for a family office? Focusing purely on the financial economics of a family office, the author derives the minimum AUM compatible with the family office’s investment management skills and costs versus the family benchmark alternative as well as its risk aversion. He finds that rules of thumb like “the minimum size for a family office is 100 million” can be grossly misleading. The analysis is equally applicable to choosing the threshold size for in-house asset management.