1 / 3
Architect, not custodian
We design the architecture and stay engaged while it is used. We do not custody assets, manage portfolios or charge on funds under management — the structure is what we are accountable for.
Family-office structuring is the discipline of holding private wealth — operating businesses, investments, property, art, philanthropy — under architecture that survives the principals who created it. Done well, it concentrates control, distributes economic benefit, and quietly compounds for fifty years. Done poorly, it dissolves in a generation.
Above the operating businesses, the family needs a vehicle that holds investments, receives capital from sales and dividends, and deploys it back across new ventures, public markets, private equity and property. The apex vehicle determines how cleanly capital flows and how flexibly it can be redirected.
Trusts segregate assets, distribute economic benefit and survive death. Foundations — where used internationally — offer similar effects with different governance characteristics. Used together, they create a layered architecture that no single vehicle can replicate.
Succession is not a will and a trust deed. It is a governance system — a family constitution, a board of advisers, a defined process for resolving disagreement, an investment committee that survives the founder, and a clear path for the next generation to engage with the wealth without being defined by it.
Where principals and beneficiaries are tax-resident, and where the family vehicles are managed and controlled, dictates the tax treatment of every dollar in the structure. For families with cross-border members — students, expats, dual citizens — the architecture must accommodate movement without breaking.
Most families end up with capital in pockets — an operating business, a few investments, real estate, super, perhaps a venture portfolio — managed in silos by different advisers. The whole, viewed from above, is rarely deliberate. We sit at the apex and coordinate.
Where there is appetite, we also help the family deploy capital as private credit and private equity into other businesses — turning the family office from a passive holder of wealth into an active operator within a defined risk envelope.
Our work for family offices is the work we like best. The horizon is long, the relationships are durable, and the architecture has time to compound. We treat the family's capital as we would treat our own — with restraint, patience and a clear view of the second-generation outcome.
Build the apex architecture with the next two generations in the room.
Coordinate the family's accountant, lawyer, banker and investment advisers from above.
Introduce the family office to other family offices we work with, where it serves.
Stay engaged for years — succession is a relationship, not a project.
“A family office is built once and lives for a hundred years. We design for the hundred years, not the next financial year.”
We design the architecture and stay engaged while it is used. We do not custody assets, manage portfolios or charge on funds under management — the structure is what we are accountable for.
We sit alongside other family offices and arrange co-investment, deal-flow and joint-venture opportunities between them. Wealth grows faster, and with less risk, inside a network than alone.
The structures we design are explicitly tested against the second-generation handover — the one most families do not survive in capital terms. That is the bar we hold the architecture to.
A single family office is a private organisation that manages the affairs — investment, tax, succession, philanthropy, governance — of one family. You need one once the complexity and capital warrant a dedicated team rather than ad-hoc adviser relationships. For most families that threshold sits somewhere between AUD $30M and $50M of private wealth, though it varies meaningfully with complexity rather than size alone.
Typically: an apex discretionary family trust holding shares in a family holding company, which in turn owns the operating businesses, investment company and property sub-trusts. A trustee company sits at the head, with appointor succession defined in the deed and the family constitution. Bucket companies and SMSFs sit alongside for tax smoothing and retirement. The architecture is layered deliberately, not flat.
The family constitution is what makes the legal structure behave like a governed institution. It defines values, decision rights, branch representation, conflict resolution, education for the next generation, and the principles for engaging external advisers. Without it, the trust deeds and shareholder agreements are read in isolation — and disagreements escalate to litigation rather than family council.
Yes, and increasingly should. The premium for private market access — particularly private credit, where institutional yields have re-rated — is meaningful relative to public markets. We design the deployment architecture: SPV per position, co-investment vehicles alongside other family offices, governance to prevent over-concentration, and reporting that is honest about loss as well as gain.
Significantly. If principals or beneficiaries become tax-resident overseas, distribution policy needs to be adjusted, management-and-control risk for entities needs to be managed, and reporting obligations multiply. We design structures that accommodate movement — not ones that break the first time a child studies in London or a principal retires to Singapore.
No. We coordinate them. The family's accountant runs the tax and compliance. The lawyer drafts the deeds and agreements. The investment advisers manage the portfolios. Our role is the architect's role — the brief, the integration, and the long-term coherence between them. That is the gap families repeatedly tell us has been missing.
Whether you are planning a capital raise, contemplating sale, or simply re-thinking how the business is held — start with a confidential introduction. There is no obligation, and no second party in the room.