HSBC Tops Family Office Asset Ranking
(Bloomberg News) Bloomberg Markets magazine has released its first annual ranking of family offices, placing HSBC Private Wealth Solutions first in terms of assets.

The list  ranks 50 firms by assets. HSBC, a unit of London-based HSBC Holdings Plc's private bank, oversees $102 billion for families in 18 offices around the world.

New York-based Bessemer Trust Co. is No. 2, with $44.5 billion under management.

Seven of the top ten providers of family-office services are owned by or affiliated with big banks. In addition to HSBC, the list includes Switzerland's UBS AG (No. 3), San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. (No. 5) and Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which bought 70% of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla-based GenSpring Family Offices LLC (No. 7) in 2001.

The amount of money managed by the 50 top firms increased 17%, to $477 billion, in 2010 from 2009. The number of multifamily-office firms in the U.S. has doubled in the past ten years, according to Wheaton, Ill.-based Family Wealth Alliance LLC, which provides consulting services to the industry.

To make the list, the normally secretive companies had to serve more than one family and provide the amount of assets they oversee and the number of clients they serve. Those that declined weren't included.

The tussle in the business is between banks and independent firms. The boutiques say the banks are more likely to break the cardinal rule in the industry: Don't flog your products.

"The big firms have become manufacturing companies-manufacturers of financial products," said Paul Tramontano, co-founder of Constellation Wealth Advisors LLC, a family office with $4 billion under management.

Pagani To Offer $1.2M Sports Car
(Bloomberg News) Pagani Automobili SpA, the Italian supercar maker, plans to debut its 825,000 euro ($1.2 million) Huayra gull-wing coupe in the U.S. by 2013, a shorter delay caused by air bag requirements than it previously predicted.

The lag will be about a year, instead of the three years that the company estimated when it asked the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to waive a requirement to install an advanced air bag system, according to Pagani Managing Director Francesco Zappacosta. The carmaker anticipated the agency's denial of its waiver request and sped up development of the air bag system, he said.

"We'd expected the possibility of a negative outcome, so that's why the delay isn't as long as it might have been," Zappacosta said. "We're really looking at an extra year." The company plans to sell the Huayra in the U.S. in late 2012 or early 2013, he said.

NHTSA last month denied Pagani's request for an exemption from the 11-year-old U.S. mandate to install air bags with sensors that adjust deployment force based on the size of occupants. The company has said that developing an advanced air-bag program would cost it 4 million euros.

The costs come from crash tests required for the air bags and for the supplier, Robert Bosch GmbH, to develop deployment algorithms, Zappacosta said.

"It does have an additional number of crash tests involved for the dual-stage involved, which is obviously a cost especially for someone like us who makes few cars and they're expensive," he said.

Pagani plans to sell five to eight cars a year in the U.S., Zappacosta said. The company has taken more than 60 orders internationally and is now accepting U.S. orders, he said. The car will be legal to drive on the road in all 50 states and will pass California emissions requirements, he said.

Christie's Fumes Over $15M Sale
(Bloomberg News) The chance to sell four paintings by the late painter Clyfford Still, whose fanatical control of his work made sales rare, has favored one of the two major auction houses and left the other angry.

The city of Denver, where the Clyfford Still Museum is opening on November 18, selected Sotheby's International to place the four works through either a private sale or public auction this fall. The proceeds would benefit the museum's endowment. The auction house guaranteed the museum more than $25 million and could earn as much as $15 million in commission.

The city rejected the offer of Christie's International Plc, which sold a large Still canvas in 2006 for $21.3 million.
"Christie's made a clear, detailed and timely offer to the Clyfford Still Museum and city of Denver, and want to be sure that it is given due consideration," the company said in a statement. Christie's hasn't filed a formal complaint.

"It was a competitive process that was fair and followed the city's contracting procedures," said Jan Brennan, with the Denver office of cultural affairs and one of the nine members of the selection committee.