As a family’s wealth grows, the question changes. It stops being about which fund to buy next and starts being about how everything fits together: the listed investments, the property, the private assets, the family business, the debt, the tax and the ownership structures around all of it.
The family office vs wealth manager distinction is therefore one of scope rather than scale. A wealth manager builds a portfolio around a family’s objectives, risk tolerance, income needs and time horizon. A family office works from the whole balance sheet, coordinates the investment managers, bankers, lawyers, accountants and trustees around it, and takes on what no balance sheet records: succession, governance, preparing the next generation and keeping the family together.