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Single-Family Offices Friending Single-Family Offices

Thought I would share this great family office article from Russ Alan Prince at Forbes Insights

One of the strengths of the very wealthy is the depth and breath of their personal and professional contacts. What are even more powerful are their core relationships – advocates for the affluent often enabling them to garner key resources and generate new business opportunities.

The non-family senior executives of single-family offices are increasingly working to gain significant advantages by adopting the same approach the self-made wealthy have in developing results-driven professional networks. A crucial component of this process is building solid relationships with senior executives at other single-family offices.

In a survey of 78 single-family offices, about 85% of the senior executives report that they’re making concerted efforts to expand and strengthen their relationship with their peers in other single family offices. The two principal reasons for this are access to best practices and access to business opportunities especially investment possibilities.

While the universe of single-family offices is generally opaque by design, there are ways these senior executives are effectively establishing relationships with their peers. Attending select conferences, geared toward single-family offices, prove to be an effective way to meet and get to know other senior executives. According to Usha Bhate, executive director, Institutional Investor, “The best take-away, when attending a conference for the single family office executive, is the ability to meet other like-minded individuals to establish a valuable peer group to not only to create a co-investment network, but to get advice as well as bounce ideas off.”

Along the same lines, there are large scale noteworthy conferences that are very useful in meeting world leaders including the people running significant single family offices. “More and more, the top executives of single-family offices are going to international conferences focused on world issues,” reports Miguel Forbes, vice chairman, Forbes Family Trust. “At these events we find opportunities to start discussing ways to collaborate.”

Some single-family offices are connecting through dedicated associations. As the number of single-family offices continues to boom, more associations are popping up. The complication with some of these associations is the degree to which their membership is composed of single-family offices or vendors.

A number of providers to single-family offices structure small group meeting often bringing in outside experts to speak. These meetings turn out to be good places for senior executives to connect and share with each other. Along the same lines, some senior executives of single-family offices host their own meetings for their peers in effect creating informal study groups.

One of the most effective ways senior executives at single-family offices are connecting with each other is to leverage their relationships with the professionals they engage. What’s clear is that most of the senior executives at single-family offices are proactively taking steps to network with each other. This is a trend that’s likely to intensify, especially as the numbers of single-family offices continue to grow.

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