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For the past 3 decades, the private wealth industry has been heavily focused on, and dominated by, highly technical disciplines, such as investment management, tax and accounting, and trust and estate planning, with solutions primarily serving the financial capital of enterprise families and the vision of prior generations. The qualitative needs an...

We are entering a New Era in Family Wealth. The New Era represents a distinct shift in families’ needs and priorities. Family wealth has long been defined mostly in financial terms, which led to growth and protection of the family’s financial capital as the overriding priority. Today, here is an emerging desire by more families to focus on purpose,...

When a strategic plan is developed with the family's values and mission in mind, it can serve as a family-endorsed and impactful roadmap. In this event session, hear about FOX's work with developing a vision and mission statement, and from a seasoned family governance expert who has worked with families and family offices to create proven strategic...

It’s no secret the investment world has changed, causing many family offices to re-evaluate the way they invest. During this session, FOX members will share the process they went through to reorganize their investment function. They’ll explain how they managed the restructuring of investment governance, outsourced relationships, underlying portfoli...

The death of a loved one is a difficult and emotional time for a family. There is often additional stress if you are appointed as the executor of the will and trustee of your family’s trusts, especially if the deceased had been the sole manager of substantial family assets and wealth. For an untrained person, it can be a daunting role. For these re...

When done well, a trustee’s service can have a profoundly positive impact on a family; when done poorly, a trustee’s service can create or exacerbate fissures within a family, dissipate family wealth, create personal liability for the trustee, and create a public spectacle that sullies the family’s good name and reputation. For key employees in fam...

Ultimately, how well your wealth transfer plan fulfills your legacy and meets the needs of the next—and future—generations depends on whom you name as your trustee(s). This makes your trustee selection one of the most critical aspects of an already complex wealth planning process. To help navigate this selection process, work with a framework built...

Serving as a trustee for your family can be a valuable experience for you, while also providing an important service to your family. But before you accept the position, make sure that you understand the role you will play for the family and are willing to accept the responsibilities and liability that come with it.

To effectively serve as a trustee, it's crucial to understand your fiduciary duties. Even trustees with the best of intentions can create liability for themselves by being unprepared for the job or by not fully understanding their obligations. Learn more about some of the common mistakes family trustees make that can lead to lawsuits and other...

Contrary to conventional “wisdom,” decisions regarding manager selection can impact performance as much as or more than decisions regarding asset allocation. Success in this manner involves the ability to identify and access managers who are often not available in common formats, such as mutual funds and most open-architecture investment platforms.

Manager selection is a critical component of success in any asset class, but particularly in private equity, where manager return dispersion is meaningfully wider than in public markets. Over time, the factors influencing private equity manager selection have become more complex. Investors should account for these changes but remain focused on key ...

Investment broker and manager fees are not always aligned with the value they provide. Given low prospective returns, fee awareness is more important than ever if investors are going to meet their investment objectives. Investors can use a simple, objective framework to determine if a manager’s fee is worth the value they add.

Creating portfolios that are customized to a family’s unique investment goals and risk tolerance requires ingenuity and flexible thinking. However, the execution of risk management should be more systematic. Ultimately, the effective investors employ a risk management framework that accounts for potential risk at every stage of the investment proce...

Choosing a trustee is a major decision—one that may impact you and your family in many ways for generations to come. Essentially, when you establish a trust for the benefit of others, you are handing down your values through the terms of the trust and your contributed financial assets. And with an increasing number of trusts lasting for multiple ge...