The half-sisters were perpetually engaged in friendly competition. We discovered that if one of them wanted something, the other did as well. For instance, if one of them is interested in a gentleman, the other sister's short-term goal in life is to sleep with that man first. When they talk about the family office, the issue is about products and services the family office will provide, but also about goals and values, aspirations and needs ... and always personalities.
While they initially wanted to have a family office taking care of the financial affairs for both of them, it would not have worked out very well to have both involved in the same office. Every time these conversations got beyond the idea that a family office is a good idea, which usually happened over lunch or dinner, the food would fly-literally.
In the end, one of the sisters did indeed set up a family office for herself. Within six months her single-family office started taking in outside clients. Evidently, a fair number of her friends also wanted to be out from under the advisors of their parents. The transition from single- to multifamily office required a restructuring of the operation. Presently, the multifamily office is managing in excess of $4 billion.
As for the other sister, she still has her musical jewelry box and a plethora of eager gentlemen to address her needs. The sisters continue to spend a lot of time together.
It's Not Boring
The wealthy (especially the extremely wealthy) share a key characteristic with the rest of us: We all come from and are part of dysfunctional families. It's an essential component of the human condition. Consulting on single-family offices is never boring, as we regularly get involved with the personalities and family dynamics as much as we provide direction for the structure per se.
While we intentionally used a couple of extreme examples, almost every engagement has some interesting quirks. For example, earlier this year, Russ was hired to assist in staffing a single-family office. One of his primary responsibilities was to help screen one of the lifestyle specialists the family wanted to bring in-house. They were looking for an extremely adept psychic. The psychic was only to deal with personal matters as opposed to being involved in legal decisions or investing. They had a list of candidates and Russ was one of the people involved in selecting the psychic. Russ's only question to each of them was, "Do you get the job?"