FOX Blog

Timely insights from FOX experts, members and industry authorities.

Benchmarking: Family Unity Through Philanthropy

Mar 06, 2015
An impressive 79% of families say they have at least one family foundation. That's what we found in the 2014 FOX Family Office Benchmarking™ survey, our comprehensive biannual benchmarking study among single family offices. This 79% number is consistent with the 80% of families that reported ha...

Agile Advising: The Advisor I Want To Be

Mar 03, 2015
Recently, a close friend of mine told me about a financial analysis on investing that a private wealth firm had sent her. She read most of it, but it all seemed very technical and disjointed to her, and after spending over an hour sifting through the material she found herself wondering, “So what do...

Single-Family Offices Can Now Serve Former In-Laws

Feb 17, 2015
The SEC has expanded the definition of “family” in single-family offices.The January 2015 ruling, which was an update to a previous SEC ruling we covered in the FOX Insights blog last year, affirmed that single-family offices not only have the right to also service family members’ in-laws and their ...

Single-Family Offices Can Now Serve Former In-Laws

Feb 17, 2015
The SEC has expanded the definition of “family” in single-family offices.The January 2015 ruling, which was an update to a previous SEC ruling we covered in the FOX Insights blog last year, affirmed that single-family offices not only have the right to also service family members’ in-laws and their ...

How Millennials Really Want to Communicate with Advisors

Feb 09, 2015
When you think of Millennials, one of the first images that likely comes to mind is a group of young adults, all standing around in a circle... looking down at their smartphones. Unfortunately, this widely accepted vision of Millennials gives a false impression of how young adults prefer to communic...

How Family Offices Change Over Time

Jan 26, 2015
Families change, grow and evolve from one generation to the next. So do family offices.While family offices are first formed to serve the needs of their founders, they eventually will shift in focus toward serving the founders' offspring and extended family—the next generation. A third-generation or...

A Benchmark Unlike Any Other

Jan 12, 2015
Every January, we launch our annual Global Investment Survey to find out how FOX members fared in the markets, and what changes they’re planning for the year ahead. Members anxiously await these results so they can provide their clients and governing boards with critical peer perspective that helps ...

Family Offices Clear One More Regulatory Hurdle

Dec 08, 2014
A third shoe has fallen. Family offices have now cleared three hurdles in the regulatory actions considered as a result of the Dodd-Frank repeal of the SEC’s old system for exempting family offices from regulation. The first was the ruling that family offices, meeting certain conditions,...

Starting a Single-family Office--Not Just By the Numbers

Dec 05, 2014
Forming a single-family office is a natural progression for many families of wealth. When a family is transitioning from operating a business to managing significant wealth, having one's own family office can offer significant benefits, including personalized attention, economies of scale and greate...

The Growing Pains of Wealth Management: How to Attract Larger Clients without Sacrificing Profitability

Nov 24, 2014
In September, the FOX Wealth Advisor Council convened in New York to discuss the latest FOX research, benchmarking and best practices for advisors serving single family offices. Many issues – from talent acquisition to profitability – were raised by Council members as key industry challenges. Perhap...