Sallenave cites the example of two Schwab MFO clients that service two extremes of the market. One focuses on families whose wealth was created more than 100 years ago. "They serve a set that has been rich their entire lives and worry about things in a different way," she says. The other advisor serves new wealth-people who were their own wealth creators and "are adjusting to the responsibility of being ultra wealthy," Sallenave says.
The report defines an MFO as an advisory business that serves multiple generations of families with at least $25 million in assets, and which provides lifestyle management services in addition to traditional investment management.
Fidelity Launches Family Office Tool
Fidelity has launched an online wealth management tool specifically designed for single-family offices.
Fidelity WealthCentral for Family Offices integrates trading, account administration and rebalancing capabilities with a third-party portfolio accounting and reporting system and an alternative investments administration tool.
The platform requires information to be manually entered only once-a feature designed to make family offices more efficient.
"With the market declines over the last two years, ultra-high-net-worth families are closely monitoring the costs of managing their family offices," says Edward J. Orazem, president of Fidelity Family Office Services. "Based on the experiences Fidelity has had with the advisor market, WealthCentral for Family Offices can potentially reduce administrative time and lower operational support expenses for those who use the system."
Foundation Giving Down 8.4%
The nation's 75,000 grant-making foundations reduced their giving by 8.4% in 2009, according to the Foundation Center.
The decline-the largest since the Foundation Center began tracking foundation giving more than 50 years ago-was attributed to the global economic downturn.
The decline came after foundations saw their assets decline 17% in 2008.