Insights · Family offices
What a family office actually does,
and who needs one
The wealthiest families run their money the way they run a business: with a written policy, one balance sheet and someone accountable. The structure is older than the term, and it no longer needs its own building.
In brief
- A family office is a business whose only client is one family. It does three jobs: it plans the balance sheet, it invests against a written policy, and it governs how decisions get made.
- Running one as an institution is expensive. UBS puts the pure cost at 41.1 basis points of assets in 2024, with staff two thirds of the bill; the offices Deloitte surveyed averaged USD 2.0 billion under management and 15 staff. That is why the model has sat with the very largest families.
- The value is in the function, not the entity: one consolidated balance sheet, an Investor Policy Statement, an allocation built against it, and a review cadence that does not depend on anyone's memory.
- The institutions next door show what the discipline looks like. ADIA's long-term portfolio holds real estate at 5 to 10% and spreads across ten asset classes and four regions; the family offices UBS surveyed hold 44% in alternatives.
- Most UAE families with USD 5 million or more do not need a single-family office. They need the part that governs the money, delivered by a regulated multi-family office, with assets held in their own name.
The definition
A business with one client
Strip the mystique away and a family office is an ordinary thing: a small business whose only customer is a family, and whose product is the orderly running of that family's wealth.
The term arrived with the industrial fortunes of the nineteenth century, when a family's affairs became too large for a lawyer and a banker to hold between them. What those first offices did is what every office does today. They kept the ledger. They decided how the capital should be deployed. They made sure the decisions were taken by the right people, in the right order, and survived the founder.
Everything else that gathers around the name, the concierge desk, the art adviser, the philanthropy arm, is optional. The three jobs are not.
Plan
A living balance sheet for the family: every entity, every account, every property and every commitment with a date attached, in one base currency, maintained rather than reconstructed each year.
Invest
An allocation built from the family's own objectives and constraints, written down as policy, then implemented and rebalanced against that policy rather than against the news.
Govern
Decision rights, a review cadence, an investment committee where the family is large enough, and a plan for how the office itself carries on when the person who built it steps back.
The economics
Why it was reserved for the very few
The institution is expensive because people are expensive, and a family office is mostly people.
UBS surveyed 317 family offices in 2025. The average participating family was worth USD 2.7 billion and its office managed USD 1.1 billion. Across that group the pure cost of running the office came to 41.1 basis points of assets under management in 2024, against a planned 40.3, and staff accounted for two thirds of it. Offices above USD 1 billion enjoyed scale, at 35.1 basis points; the implication is that smaller offices pay proportionally more.
Applied to a USD 50 million balance sheet, 41 basis points is roughly USD 205,000 a year before the office has hired anyone senior. Deloitte counts 8,030 single-family offices worldwide managing USD 3.1 trillion, and the ones it surveyed averaged USD 2.0 billion in assets and 15 staff. The institution, in other words, is built for balance sheets with ten figures.
Sources: UBS Global Family Office Report 2025, survey of 317 family offices, 22 January to 4 April 2025; strategic asset allocation for 2024. Deloitte Private, Family Office Insights Series, Global Edition: Defining the Family Office Landscape, 2024 (354 single family offices surveyed).
The function
What one actually does, week to week
Six functions account for almost all of the work. Every one of them can be done for a USD 10 million family as rigorously as for a USD 1 billion one; only the headcount changes.
The balance sheet
Who owns what, through which entity, in which currency, and what each asset is for. Property, the operating business, bank accounts, portfolios, pensions and gratuities, debts and guarantees. Most families see this once, at a moment of crisis. An office keeps it current.
The policy
An Investor Policy Statement: return objectives, risk limits, liquidity the family must keep to hand, time horizons, tax residency of each member, Shariah or other constraints, and who decides what. Written, agreed, reviewed at least annually.
Allocation and implementation
A strategic asset allocation derived from the policy, then a plan to get from today's holdings to it: what to keep, what to divest and on what calendar, where illiquid positions can only be unwound over years.
Consolidated reporting
Performance, cost and exposure across every account and custodian, per entity and in aggregate, reconciled both ways. The family reads one report, in one currency, and can check what was done against what was written.
Structuring and succession
Which entity should hold which asset and why; how the operating business and the properties pass on death or incapacity without a court freezing them; and the coordination of the lawyers and tax advisers the family appoints to do the drafting.
Governance
Decision rights, a meeting cadence, an investment committee or family council once more than one generation is at the table, and a succession plan for the office itself. This is the function that separates one-generation wealth from three-generation wealth.
The evidence
How the professionals allocate
The most useful thing a family office does is force a comparison. Here is what the world's family offices hold, and what the institution next door holds.
Family offices worldwide, 2024
Strategic asset allocation of 317 family offices; average family net worth USD 2.7 billion. Traditional 56%, alternative 44%.
Middle East family offices, 2024
The regional cut of the same survey. More private equity and more real estate than the global average, less fixed income.
Source: UBS Global Family Office Report 2025, survey of 317 family offices, 22 January to 4 April 2025; strategic asset allocation for 2024.
Next door
How ADIA actually allocates
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority publishes the ranges within which its long-term strategy portfolio may move. Two things stand out for a family reading it. Real estate is capped at 10%, in a portfolio that spans ten asset classes. And the geography is global by design: North America, Europe, emerging markets and developed Asia. ADIA states that, as a matter of practice, it does not invest in the UAE at all.
Its 20-year and 30-year annualised returns, as at 31 December 2024, were 6.3% and 7.1%. That is what patient, diversified, policy-driven capital has looked like over three decades, and it is the discipline a family office exists to borrow.
Source: Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, 2024 Review; long-term strategy portfolio ranges. Ranges show where allocations may fluctuate and do not total 100%. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Long-term strategy portfolio, by asset class
By geography
Half a world away, the same playbook
CPP Investments manages the Canada Pension Plan for more than 22 million contributors and beneficiaries. At 31 March 2026 it held C$793.3 billion: 36% in public equities, 22% in private equities, 20% in real assets, 13% in government bonds and 9% in credit. Its net return for the year was 7.8%, and 8.8% a year over ten years. A pension fund, a sovereign fund and a family office share one idea: many engines, no single point of failure.
Source: CPP Investments, Fiscal 2026 Annual Report; asset class composition as at 31 March 2026. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
The problem it solves
The concentration problem
Set the professional's allocation beside a typical UAE family balance sheet and the gap is not subtle.
The typical sheet leans on a small number of large positions. Property in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, often several units. The operating business, which is usually the largest single asset and the least liquid. Cash spread across two or three banks, some of it earning nothing. A few regional listed holdings. For a resident family, a residence permit that is itself tied to the same economy.
Each of those looks like a separate asset. All of them answer to the same set of forces, at the same time, for the same reasons. The point of a family office is not to make a family sell what it has built. It is to see the concentration clearly, to decide deliberately how much of it to keep, and to build the rest of the balance sheet so that it does not share the same weather.
The typical family balance sheet
Local propertyOperating businessCash at two or three banksRegional listed sharesThe professional's balance sheet
Global public equitiesGlobal fixed incomePrivate equityPrivate creditReal estate, sizedInfrastructureFinancial alternativesCash, with a jobThe threshold
Do you need one? Ask about complexity, not net worth
A net-worth threshold is the wrong test. The right one is whether the family's affairs already generate a family office's workload. Count how many of these apply.
- Wealth held through more than one entity: a personal name, a company, a holding structure, a spouse's or a child's accounts.
- Assets or family members in more than one jurisdiction, or spending in more than one currency.
- More than one generation with a stake in the decisions.
- Commitments with real dates attached: school and university fees, property completions, a planned exit, a retirement.
- A concentration that would take years, not weeks, to unwind.
Two or more, and the work exists whether or not anyone is doing it.
Three ways to get it done
| Route | What it is | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Single-family office | An entity the family owns and staffs. Full control, full cost; UBS's survey puts the running cost near 41 basis points of assets, higher for smaller offices. | Balance sheets large enough to justify a payroll, typically in the hundreds of millions or more. |
| Multi-family office | A regulated firm delivers the function: balance sheet, policy, allocation, consolidated reporting and a senior person accountable. Fixed costs are shared across families. | Families with several million or more in investable assets who want the discipline without the institution. |
| Self-managed, with fractional specialists | A family member acts as chief executive of the family's wealth and retains a tax adviser, a lawyer and a bookkeeper as needed. | Works when someone in the family has the time and the temperament to run the cadence. Strains when that person is also running the business. |
Worked example
What it looks like for a UAE founder family
An illustration of the workload, composed from the patterns we see rather than drawn from any one client. The figures are indicative only.
- The family
- A founder in Dubai in his late fifties, majority owner of an operating company; a spouse with assets in her own name; two children, one at university in the United Kingdom and one joining the business. Three properties, two in Dubai and one in London. Accounts at three banks in two currencies, one of them an offshore private bank that manages a discretionary portfolio the family has never seen consolidated with the rest.
- The questions nobody was paid to answer
- What is the family worth, today, in one currency, and how much of that could be turned into cash within a year?
- What happens to the company shares and the properties if the founder is incapacitated next month?
- Is the private bank's portfolio diversifying the family, or duplicating what the family already owns?
- Which child's future is funded, and in which currency?
- What the family office function did
- Built one balance sheet across the four people and five entities, and found that roughly seven tenths of net worth sat in the company and the properties, all in one city.
- Drafted an Investor Policy Statement for the family and a short one for each adult member, with liquidity reserves, currency of future spending and decision rights written down.
- Set a five-year plan to diversify from company dividends rather than by selling assets, into a global allocation held in the family's own name.
- Consolidated reporting across the private bank and the new portfolio, so duplication became visible and the private bank's fees became comparable.
- Coordinated the family's lawyers on registering wills in the appropriate UAE jurisdiction and reviewing the holding structure for the company shares.
- What changed
- Nothing dramatic, which is the point. The family kept the business and the properties. It gained a document that says what the wealth is for, a report it can read in an evening, a diversification plan that runs on its own cash flow, and an answer to the incapacity question that does not involve a court.
How Vault does it
The function, without the institution
Vault Wealth runs a multi-family office service for UAE families from USD 5 million in liquid investable assets, measured across the family's entities rather than on any single account. It delivers the six functions above, and it is deliberately clear about what it is not.
Vault Wealth Limited is regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority in ADGM to advise on and arrange investments. Client assets are held at Interactive Brokers in each entity's own name, segregated from Vault's balance sheet. We are not a trustee, a corporate service provider, a law firm or an accountancy practice; where a structure needs those, we work alongside the specialists you appoint. Full details of the tier are on the family office page.
Dedicated senior advisor
One senior person who knows the family and is accountable for the whole picture; no rotating relationship managers.
Investor Policy Statement
Drafted with the family, reviewed at least annually and whenever circumstances change. It is your document.
Multi-entity consolidation
Personal, corporate and next-generation accounts planned as one mandate, with reporting that reconciles per entity and in aggregate. Assets held elsewhere can be aggregated into the same view.
Global public and private markets
Listed securities across major exchanges, and curated private-market funds across private equity, private credit, real estate, infrastructure and venture, with minimums, liquidity and risks disclosed line by line.
Estate and succession planning
We plan the estate with the family, from wills to the shape of the holding structure, and coordinate the legal specialists who do the drafting.
Continuity
Accounts in your names at a global custodian and reporting you can export. If the family changes advisers, generation or mind, the capital does not have to move.
Questions families ask
Before you ask us
What is a family office, in one sentence?
A family office is a business whose only client is one family. It keeps the family's whole balance sheet in view, invests it against a written policy, and governs how decisions get made across entities and generations.
How much wealth do you need for a family office?
For a single-family office with its own staff and premises, a great deal. The offices in Deloitte's 2024 survey managed an average of USD 2.0 billion with 15 staff, and UBS puts the pure running cost at 41.1 basis points of assets. The function itself scales down much further. In the UAE, Vault's family office service starts at USD 5 million in liquid investable assets across the family's entities, measured on the total relationship rather than any single account.
What is the difference between a single-family office and a multi-family office?
A single-family office is an entity the family owns and staffs; it serves one family and the family carries its full cost. A multi-family office is a regulated firm that delivers the same functions, policy, allocation, consolidated reporting and senior oversight, to several families at once, so the fixed cost is shared. In Vault's model the family also keeps custody of its assets in its own name at Interactive Brokers, so the relationship can change without the capital having to move.
We already have two private banks. Is that not a family office?
It is two portfolios. A private bank sees the account it holds, prices its own products, and reports on its own slice. Nobody in that arrangement is paid to hold the whole picture, to write down what the family is trying to do, or to ask whether the second bank's holdings duplicate the first's. A family office function sits above the banks and does exactly that. It can work alongside existing relationships; it does not require closing them.
What is an Investor Policy Statement?
The family's written constitution for its capital: objectives, time horizons, asset-class ranges, the liquidity the family needs to keep available, constraints such as Shariah screening or excluded sectors, and who is allowed to decide what. Its value shows in bad weather. When markets fall and one family member wants to sell while another wants to buy, the argument becomes a reference to a document the family already agreed.
Does Vault provide legal, tax or trustee services?
No. Vault Wealth Limited is regulated by the FSRA in ADGM to advise on and arrange investments. We plan the estate with the family and coordinate with the lawyers, tax advisers and corporate service providers the family appoints, and we say plainly when a question belongs to them rather than to us. We are not a trustee, a law firm or an accountancy practice.
Keep reading
Sources
- UBS Global Family Office Report 2025, survey of 317 family offices, 22 January to 4 April 2025; strategic asset allocation for 2024.
- Deloitte Private, Family Office Insights Series, Global Edition: Defining the Family Office Landscape, 2024 (354 single family offices surveyed).
- Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, 2024 Review; long-term strategy portfolio ranges. Ranges show where allocations may fluctuate and do not total 100%.
- CPP Investments, Fiscal 2026 Annual Report; asset class composition as at 31 March 2026.
- Vault Wealth, Family Office tier terms as published at vaultwealth.com/family-office, September 2026.
Next step
Start with the balance sheet, not the product
Open an account and a senior Vault advisor will map the family's entities into one view and set out what an Investor Policy Statement would need to cover before anything is committed.