How it works, why it’s advantageous, and what to expect in the transition
By Kimberly Frasca-Delaney, Senior Vice President and Client Advisor for Whittier Trust Company
Sometimes when family finances grow in size and complexity, the answer is to go simpler, not bigger.
After devoting years to building your own family office, it can be difficult to decide that it may not be serving you as well as it once did. Perhaps there are too many business entities or too many diverse interests among family members for the staff to attend to now. Or maybe it’s just too complicated managing a full office on top of your primary business.
“Moving from a single family office to a multi-family office doesn’t need to be a challenging transition,” says Kimberly Frasca-Delaney, Senior Vice President and Client Advisor at Whittier Trust. “Family office clients often come to us because of complexity, consolidation, or coordination. Their technology may be aging out or, as a client once said to me, ‘my key advisors have too many candles on their birthday cakes.’ Once they’ve gotten to know us and the breadth of services we offer, they often find they have a much deeper bench of advice and experience.” Regardless of why clients come into Whittier Trust’s family office fold, the transition doesn’t need to be disruptive, if you have experienced professionals and a proven process. Here’s how it can work.
Seamless Transition
At Whittier Trust, we know your existing team has the institutional knowledge as well as a longstanding investment in your well-being. We work closely with both your team and family to build relationships that will facilitate the transition. We seek to understand the priorities, tasks, and goals of the office from both sides—family and staff—and then develop an infrastructure to address each and, when advantageous, incorporate more efficient solutions. The timeline can vary, but it is always driven based on the client’s comfort level. “During the onboarding process, most of the effort is being done by Whittier Trust—it’s generally a very low-effort process for the existing family office,” says Frasca-Delaney. Once the office provides the necessary documentation, the Whittier team creates a roadmap for a seamless transition. “It is important to note that the roadmap is only as good as the information we receive,” she adds. “So transparency is vital.”
The complexity of single family offices is nothing new to the Whittier team. Diverse assets, significant balance sheets, real estate holdings, private equity, alternative assets, philanthropy, and constant money movement are commonplace. The onboarding process typically goes entity by entity, leaving no detail unaddressed. “One entity might own a dozen real estate properties worth many millions of dollars of assets each,” Frasca-Delaney explains. “Most single-family offices have hundreds of entities wrapped up into their trusts, which is why we create a road map for the transition of each entity to the new office.”
Multi-Family Office Advantages
At your single-family office, you may have been intimately involved in day-to-day tasks such as paying bills, completing the books, and renewing insurance. At Whittier Trust, our objective is always to reduce complexity and create efficiencies so that clients can focus on their family and business needs, knowing every key detail is being handled. To accomplish that, we take a holistic view of your accounts, your estate, and your goals. “Our team has a range of experience—from attorneys to people with their MBAs and teams including accounting, investments, estates, and philanthropy—so we’re hyper-vigilant about maximizing results for our clients,” Frasca-Delaney says. “We don’t just pay bills on autopilot. We are constantly looking for ways to find breakthrough solutions to improve our clients’ personal and financial lives.”
Technology is another major Whittier Trust advantage. The scale of the multi-family office means we can invest in leading-edge programs that might demand too much training and upfront investment for a single-family office. We use Addepar and Arch to aggregate and generate that data and streamline processes, which is particularly useful for families with a lot of alternative investments. This customized family office wealth management system delivers all key information via digital overnight feeds, allowing us to give clients immediate updates at any time as well as reports tailored to the data points and timing that are most important to you. We are committed to maintaining personal relationships with our clients, while pursuing tech-savvy solutions to improve our service and outcomes.
The multi-family office scale also means we have a team big enough to dedicate an advisor to each branch of our clients’ families for a high-touch experience. This is often driven by generational differences. This way, everyone can rest assured they have their own coach and advocate. This can be especially important in tough family conversations where it’s vital to make sure each family group has a voice. “We’re able to pair an advisor who resonates with each member of the family. That can be both comforting and confidence-inspiring to clients at various stages of their lives and wealth journeys,” Frasca-Delaney says.
With the Whittier Trust team serving as translators, facilitators, and cheerleaders, we make sure to resolve the questions family members may be afraid to ask among siblings and parents. As an unbiased third party, we can relay the big-picture message in a personalized manner, helping bridge the gap between any communication barriers.
The multi-family office serves as a trusted central command center that will endure for multiple generations and serve each branch of the family, not just the original wealth creator or head of family. “It offers longevity and continuity,” Frasca-Delaney says. “And it allows you and your family to spend your time on what really matters—making the most of your wealth and your relationships—not on running an office.”
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Kimberly Frasca-Delaney is a Senior Vice President, Client Advisor in Whittier Trust’s Pasadena office. A former practicing attorney in estate planning and family law, she assists in the wealth planning and client advisory for high-net-worth individuals and their families, focusing on estate plans with complex legal structures.