Jeremy Arnold outlines the concept of a family office and what it does, highlighting the fact that it can come in many shapes and sizes, is largely dependent on what the family is trying to achieve and the asset base. Jeremy explains how things generally become more sophisticated when the family office deals with investments.
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People often ask - what is a family office and what does it do? A family office can come in many shapes and sizes. You could have a family office that consists of one accountant and one lawyer, or you could have a family office that consists of a hundred people. So it all depends on what the family is trying to achieve and what the asset base is that they have, what the scale of the asset base is, and really how many people they have in their family. So there's really no hard and fast rule and family offices tend to be very bespoke businesses. Where it becomes more complicated is when the family office starts dealing with investments. Then you may have one investment professional or you may have a team of investment professionals, and those investment professionals may be overseeing the performance and reporting of external asset managers for the family or they may actually be managing the assets themselves. So that's where family offices can become very sophisticated.