Ackman started Table four years ago so he could focus on managing Pershing, a person with knowledge of his thinking said. The family firm grew out of investments Ackman did with his father and now has a team of about five, including CIO Greg Lyss, who worked for Ackman at his first fund; and President Andrea Markezin, who previously worked at the family office of the Sulzberger family, which controls the New York Times Co.

In addition to Sprout, Ackman has invested in startups including Relationship Science, an online professional- networking firm; PlaySight Interactive, a tennis analytics company; and Nitrous, a cloud-computing firm. But most of Table’s investments are in real estate, including a $91.5 million penthouse in Manhattan.


Mindich, Och


Mindich, founder of Eton Park Capital Management, created Everblue Management last October. To run it, he hired Kerrie Juras Ferrentino, who previously worked with the family office of the Dolans, the New York clan behind Cablevision. It’s unclear if Everblue has made any investments.

Och, who runs Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC, set up his Willoughby Capital Management in 2009. It’s run by Morgan Rutman, a former hedge fund manager. The CIO, Mira Muhtadie, previously worked in private equity and oversees investments including venture capital and art.

Paul Tudor Jones has been diversifying beyond his Tudor Investment Corp. since the late 1980s. His Jones Family Office, with locations in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Palm Beach, Florida, is run by Mikael Andren, who previously worked in private equity. The firm’s investments include Singita, an eco- tourism company in Africa; Reykjavik Geothermal, an Icelandic clean-energy company; and trading firms Castleton Commodities and Engineers Gate.


Loosely Regulated


Single family offices are even more loosely regulated than hedge funds, and there are few requirements about what they must disclose publicly. Some worry that these parallel operations could create conflicts.

What if a manager’s family firm invests in a small company that grows into one in which the hedge fund wants to invest? In- house family offices, which share office space and amenities, are particularly irksome. Who pays expenses for research and support staff? Like Tudor, some of Jones’s family-office ventures trade commodities and use computer-driven strategies.

Mindich’s Everblue and the family office of Ray Dalio, who runs Bridgewater Associates, are housed in the same buildings as their funds. Like Ackman, Mindich and Dalio cover the costs of running their family firms, people with knowledge of the matter said.