A family office is designed to support an enterprising family with their personal wealth. When done well, it safeguards the collective interests of the family while enabling individual family members to achieve their potential.

What a family office actually looks like in practice can vary considerably from family to family. Factors that influence this include the size of the family, the assets they own, the services they need, their short and long-term objectives and their budget.

What is almost universally true is that most families only know their own family office. In contrast, we have worked with many different ones over the years and can use this knowledge and experience to provide you with a better service, whether you want to engage in a large strategic project or simply find a specialist for a one-off piece of advice.

Establishing a Family Office

Do you need a family office? Where should it be located, and how should it be structured?

Our team can offer an initial conversation and explore these with you. Taking the time to understand the purpose and objectives of your family office at the outset can take a lot of the stress out of the process and ensure you build on strong and stable foundations. We can then work with you throughout the process as you design and then implement your plans.

How we will help your Family Office

"What we appreciate most is the team's ability to provide expert advice on accounting and tax matters with the highest integrity. This has added excellent value for our company."
- Family Office, Switzerland

You may already have your own family office or perhaps you are just interested in better organising your family’s interests.

In either case, we can provide prompt and practical advice for day-to-day matters, whether this relates to family members’ personal situations, their assets or the family office operations. For instance, we can advise on best way to structure a new investment, incentivise your employees or on tax compliance for your family trusts.

We are also here to help you succeed in the long term. In our experience, the families that enjoy success over multiple generations have two things in common; they have a strong sense of purpose and they are well organised. We understand what it can be like with a small team and wide-ranging responsibilities. Our family office clients appreciate the comprehensive range of advice and services they can access through one relationship contact at BDO as well as the trust and levels of personal service that are the foundations of our business.

Whether or not a full family office is the right route for you, we can help you to organise your affairs effectively and with purpose.

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Our Family Office Services include;

Your family

• Wealth and asset structuring including the use of trusts and family investment companies
• Articulating family values and preparing family constitutions
• Philanthropy
• Next generation planning and support
• Divorce/matrimonial support
• Personal tax returns and compliance

Your Family Office

• Family Office establishment and governance structuring
• Strategic reviews
• Employment tax advice and compliance
• Cyber security and regulatory compliance
• Structuring
• Payroll and company secretarial services
• Management incentives
• Risk management
• Sustainability and ESG
• Audit and assurance

Your assets

• Capital gains planning, optimising tax rates and reliefs
• Property development and investment
• Capital allowances, stamp duty land tax and VAT
• Tax structuring for investments, fund management and private equity
• Tax reporting for funds, investors and executives
• Structuring luxury assets
• Buy and sell-side support for direct private equity
• Valuations

Family business advice

We collaborate with our colleagues in the dedicated Family Business advisory team who work with family-owned and family run businesses to help them overcome the unique challenges they face.