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A Family Office is an organisation that manages the wealth and related organisational matters, for a high-net-worth (HNW) family or extended family and its business interests. The Family Office may be a private organisation created by the family to manage their own wealth (a Single Family Office) or an external organisation that provides such services for multiple families (a Multi-Family Office).

The core services that a Family Office provides are wealth management and wealth planning or the co-ordination of both, although Family Offices usually provide a much wider scope of responsibilities than general wealth management advisers.

Wealth management is the investment based management of the total wealth assets of the family to achieve sufficient cash flow for short and mid-term needs and sufficient capital growth to provide sufficient wealth for future generations of the family.

Wealth planning is the activity concerned with the future preservation of the wealth assets achieved through wealth management. It needs to consider such matters as estate planning, corporate continuity and succession planning as family circumstances and so ownership and management, change. As part of wealth planning, the Family Office may also provide services such as tax planning, trust and corporate services, all needed to maximise wealth and aid wealth preservation.

Family Offices will often be involved in overseeing family governance arrangements so that there is an agreed formal framework through which the family, which may have several branches, can jointly set and review their family wealth strategies and actions.

In some arrangements the Family Office may undertake quite specific services such as charitable giving, administration or even such detailed matters as arranging staffing or providing travel services.

Döhle Corporate and Trust Services Limited is an independent corporate and fiduciary service provider that can offer Family Office Support. We provide a comprehensive range of administrative support and a high level of corporate governance, which can be tailored to meet the individual requirements of our clients.