One size definitely doesn't fit all.
Every family is unique and we approach each relationship as such. Drawing on our extensive experience with generations of families, we design creative, advantageous strategies to help families reach their goals. In appreciation of both the responsibility and opportunity that wealth carries, we understand that successful families require distinct attention. As such, our practice is to create a unique solution for each family office client. Whether you are seeking a discrete set of services to complement an existing family office structure or would prefer to outsource the full family office experience, Brown Advisory is equipped to provide you with investment management, strategic advice, client service, oversight and/or administration to satisfy any of your family office goals and needs.
Some families come to us looking for a robust solution to streamline their financial life and help them achieve a certain peace of mind. Others come seeking just a specific expertise.
Brown Advisory can act as your family office, providing a comprehensive and strategic partnership for your family. We will act as a centralized advisor for your complex financial affairs, and coordinate and organize all aspects of your financial life, from investment management across multiple providers, to tax administration and organization, to entity and payroll management, to trust and generational wealth concerns.
For families with a professional family office already in place, we can augment and complement that service to help address hard-to-reach goals. Whether that requires a highly focused alternative investment portfolio, unique reporting requirements, foundation or trust administration, or aviation management, Brown Advisory works with you and your team to define a scope of work that completes the expertise your family requires.
Managing Investments
Drawing on decades of experience working with successful families seeking diversified portfolios, we partner with clients to help them navigate the complexities of today’s capital markets and create portfolios designed to achieve their goals.
Our family office investment teams are supported by our robust research capabilities and use a combination of internally and externally managed strategies. Clients can leverage Brown Advisory’s institutional equity, fixed income, private equity and alternatives research teams to source high-conviction ideas across the investable universe and construct portfolios that can deliver over the long term. Our investment experts set asset allocation guidelines and find, select and cover a high-quality group of managers around the world in an effort to address the needs of any portfolio.
Given the breadth of investment expertise at Brown Advisory, we believe we are able to provide distinct portfolios to family offices seeking to solve for a variety of investment mandates. Whether you require an alternatives portfolio, a municipal bond strategy or the construction of a select portfolio of our best equity ideas, your portfolio management team works with a deep bench of investment professionals to help meet your investment needs.
Strategic Advice
We offer counsel on a wide range of topics beyond traditional investment advice, including but not limited to strategic planning, estate planning, generational wealth transfer, financial education, philanthropic planning and fiduciary oversight. We believe that the solutions our Strategic Advisors recommend are critical to providing the holistic advice our clients need to achieve their goals.
In our experience, it is most effective to consider all legal, tax and planning issues in concert with ongoing investment management decisions and in collaboration with a family’s other outside advisors to help ensure a cohesive pursuit of long-term goals.
Read more in our article,
Family Matters: New Considerations for Structuring Family Offices
Andrea Ayres, Director, Family Office, and Tom Geddes, Portfolio Manager and Head of Family Office Solutions.
Client Service
Since our founding, we have been a leading family office by strategically investing in experience and innovating to provide best-in-class solutions for our clients. Understanding that successful families require attention tailored to their specific goals and needs, we create thoughtful, customized, solutions for each family office client. Each solution incorporates:
- Careful Listening. Every family’s needs are unique, as are the needs of every family office. We listen carefully to your needs before offering any advice.
- Intellectual Capital. Our 900+ colleagues around the world bring experience across every discipline relevant to family offices of all sizes.
- Deep Experience. Our senior team includes a number of executives who have run single-family offices with more than $1 billion in assets.
Given the breadth of investment expertise at Brown Advisory, we believe we are able to provide distinct portfolios to family offices seeking to solve for a variety of investment mandates. Whether you require an alternatives portfolio, a municipal bond strategy or the construction of a select portfolio of our best equity ideas, your portfolio management team works with a deep bench of investment professionals to help meet your investment needs.
Family Office: Client Stories
Indra
Indra, a 34-year-old entrepreneur planned to continue on as CEO after the upcoming IPO. She had decided to take a significant sum of money off the table—retaining a large position in the company and setting herself up for the long term. One of her mentors advised her to think about starting a family office but she was unsure. She knew she would be too busy to give the needed attention to her financial life. But, she was already formulating ideas about philanthropy how to engage on the policy issues that she cared about, particularly climate change.
Wes
Wes, CEO and steward of a global, family-owned, business, was diligent about maintaining a bulletproof personal balance sheet to protect fellow shareholders and company employees. Wes never wanted to find himself at the mercy of a market cycle, unable to make a key strategic investment, or limited in terms of future growth by needing to make short-term decisions about distributions or liquidation opportunities. But in his effort to be cautious, Wes was failing to take into account some important facts.
Derek and Monique
Derek and Monique built their own company and sold it for a significant sum. They continued to raise their three young children in the same modest home and paid off student loans. They did not want to appear conspicuous in their spending or change their lifestyle but, this modesty kept them from engaging a sophisticated financial advisor. While their core values remained unchanged their life began getting more complex. Derek launched a new venture. They decided to buy his parents’ dream home for their retirement. And they began investing directly into companies and funds. Everything appeared to be working well… until the IRS audit.
