You’ve sold the business. Do you need a family office?
5 mins to read this article
What you need to know
- While the number of family offices has grown to several thousand globally, there are just a few hundred in the UK
- When deciding whether to set up a family office, you should weigh up the costs against the value
- If a family office is not the answer, a number of lower-cost alternatives can achieve similar outcomes.
The past few decades have been a time of exceptional wealth creation, with many UK entrepreneurs setting up, growing and selling businesses. Then comes a new challenge: how to invest and preserve your wealth for the good of your family in an increasingly complex and changing environment.
After selling a business, many founders naturally consider investing in assets or businesses where they can exert some influence, drawing on their experience and instinct for control. This is a sensible starting point, but a time will come when families’ circumstances change and the founder may want to wind down to focus on other aspects of life. Having a flexible structure then becomes critically important, with investments sitting across public markets and private assets, supported by professional advisers providing access, diversification and oversight. In this way, founders stay connected to entrepreneurial activity without having to make a direct or hands on commitment.
If you’re transitioning from business owner to wealthy investor, you may reach a point like this where you ask: do I need a family office? There’s no simple answer because no two families are the same and no two family offices are the same. Whether a family office would benefit you depends on how wealthy you are, the nature of your investments and the complexity of your family.
For ultra-wealthy billionaire families with houses, investments and family members spread across the world, the answer is normally yes. But for families of more modest wealth and relatively straightforward lives, the benefits are less clear. Instead, many opt for alternatives that stop short of a full family office.
What’s a family office?
Family offices come in many shapes and sizes. The world’s biggest in Asia or the United States employ hundreds of people to manage investments, family governance and philanthropy. But most are discreet and lean by nature, with only a handful of staff.
As wealth has surged globally, so has the number of family offices. There were 8,030 single family offices in 2024, up from 6,130 in 2019, according to a study by professional services firm Deloitte. Yet there are just 259 in the UK, according to a 2025 analysis from With Intelligence1, an information and data provider.
Family offices mainly perform financial tasks – whether around the management of investment portfolios, or reporting and accounting. Typically, the core competencies performed in-house and led by a chief investment officer include setting long-term strategic asset allocation, financial reporting and portfolio risk management. Legal and accountancy tends to be outsourced. However, family offices also steer family governance designed to nurture family members and resolve any conflicts, perhaps buying in specialist consultancy services around governance structures, education or mediation.
While family offices typically serve a single family, there are also multi-family offices that spread overheads across several families. Lastly, virtual family offices allow a family principal to use a technology platform to coordinate with specialists such as wealth managers, lawyers and accountants.
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Cost versus value
When asking whether you need a family office of your own, the answer comes down to whether the value justifies the cost.
According to a commonly cited rule of thumb, a single family office typically becomes viable from around $100 million (about £75 million) of assets. This reflects the nature of running such a structure: fixed costs do not scale proportionately with wealth, so they represent a higher percentage at lower levels and a much smaller fraction as wealth increases. At higher levels of wealth, the cost of advice and oversight also tends to adjust to reflect scale, complexity and the services you choose to use.
The bulk of that cost goes on paying salaries. UK family office chief executive officers, many of them family members, commonly earn £198,001 to £264,000, according to the KPMG/Agreus Global Family Office Compensation Benchmark Report 20252. The same report has chief investment officers earning even more, at £198,001 to £330,000.
Whether a family office will deliver value depends largely on the complexity of your affairs. If you have a big diversified investment portfolio, with specialist investments in private businesses, you may need a dedicated in-house specialist investment manager.
Family dynamics are another consideration. How many generations are there in your family? Do any family members live abroad? Is there any likelihood of conflict in the family, perhaps following a divorce? The more complex your family, the more you might benefit from the sophisticated governance structures such as family councils.
The alternatives
If you don’t need a fully-fledged family office, there are alternatives such as a virtual family office. This uses a technology platform to bring together many of the same functions at a lower cost.
In practice, many UK families adopt hybrid approaches - retaining key decision-making while outsourcing services such as strategic asset allocation, investment management, administration, and tax or legal advice. This structure may be overseen by a trustee or a professional providing non-executive style oversight from outside the family.
Some families also appoint a lead adviser, such as a private bank, to coordinate other specialists. In this role, the adviser can act as an outsourced chief investment officer, shaping the portfolio’s asset allocation in line with long-term objectives.
For most families, these decisions evolve over time rather than being made all at once. As wealth grows and circumstances change, so too can the structures that support it.
If you’re considering whether a family office, or a variation of it, might be appropriate, you’re not alone. It’s a question we are often asked. What matters most at the outset is having the right partner alongside you – one with the experience to help you make informed decisions, the breadth of capability to support what you prefer not to manage yourself, and the judgement to adapt as your needs evolve.
Just as importantly, it should be a relationship built on trust and one you feel comfortable investing time in over the long term. We would be pleased to share our perspective and help you explore what structure may be right for you.
If you would like to explore how Brown Shipley can support you at this stage of your journey, get in touch with a Brown Shipley Client Advisor.
1 With Intelligence - 2025 https://www.withintelligence.com/insights/london-remains-a-global-family-office-hub/
2 KPMG 2025 Global Family Office Compensation Benchmark Report - https://kpmg.com/xx/en/our-insights/transformation/global-family-office-compensation-benchmark-report.html
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