Frequently Asked Questions

A family office is an organization a wealthy family sets up by hiring a wide range of professionals across multiple disciplines – taxes, estate planning, accounting, bookkeeping, investing, etc. – to work for them and help them manage and execute their wealth management activities. By hiring a dedicated team of individuals, a family ensures that only their agenda is driving all of the activities. Many family offices manage budgeting, insurance, charitable giving, family owned business, wealth transfer, family governance, reporting and data aggregation and tax functions for the family they serve.

Establishing a family office can be a costly endeavor, sometimes costing more than $2 million a year to run!

Like a family office, multi-family offices tend to be holistic and focus on a broad range of wealth management solutions including investment services, estate and tax planning, family governance and education and risk management. The difference between a single-family office and multi-family office is simple – a multi-family office serves many families, distributing the costs of running the firm. Ideally, multi-family offices should be independent of any financial institution and offer un-biased advice – however, in recent years the term ‘multi-family office’ has become a popular industry term and has been used to refer to operations that are affiliated with large financial institutions, so families should be cautious when choosing the firm they will work with.

Ask any successful business owner about their succession plan, and they can probably explain it in detail. Why shouldn't your family operate in the same way? Creating a succession plan is important because it addresses issues and challenges and lays the groundwork for your future legacy. A succession plan can reduce family conflicts and ensure that you are prepared for the future.

Firstly, treat your wealth as a business—begin by mapping out all its components extensively and answer a series of basic questions:

• Who are we as a family?
• What do we own?
• How do we own it?

Answering these questions can be the starting point for your wealth growth.

Step One:Understand the Current State

Ask any successful entrepreneur about their profits and losses, and they can probably tell you. Income statements, balance sheets, cash flows—all these key pieces of information are standards for any thriving business. Why shouldn't affluent families operate in the same way? The first step to establishing your wealth growth is to gather a set of reliable financial statements to fully understand where you are now, where you want to go, and the goals you want to achieve.

Step Two: The Three Main Components of Wealth Management

The next step is to thoroughly explore the three main components of wealth growth management.

1. Provider Ecosystem: Identify all the providers for your family— who provides services to you and why? This includes asset management companies, private banks, lawyers, accountants, trust companies, custodians, advisors, brokers—anyone involved in wealth growth management with you.
2. Wealth Management Activities: To ensure your mapping is comprehensive, it would be helpful to outline the typical wealth management activities that most families need to manage their wealth. Aspects to consider include financial management, financial planning, estate and tax planning, immigration planning, investment advisory, risk management.
3. Strategy, Structure, and Governance: The third and most critical component covers the potential meaning and purpose of your wealth. How your family makes decisions, prepares for succession, how to educate the next generation of wealth owners, are all foundational aspects that need to be established; yet many families have not explored them.

Once you have identified all the most important information in your family, it will become clear if there are any areas that need to be addressed.

To know where you are going, you must understand where you are. If you need to rethink your comprehensive guide to wealth.

Wealth growth management forms when a family begins to think about and manage their wealth like a business. In our collaborations with families like yours, we’ve seen that families manage their wealth as a professional endeavor, using the same processes and best practices that were initially used to create wealth, to overcome challenges and sustain wealth.

To create wealth growth within their investment portfolio, they:

• Set clear objectives for their wealth and manage it with a long-term strategy.
• Clearly understand the role each person plays in managing the wealth.
• Find and purchase suitable financial products at the right price.
• Gain strong reporting capabilities to track progress.
• Establish effective decision-making processes and transparent governance structures.
• Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of each provider in managing wealth.
• Plan early for immigration to countries suitable for wealth growth and second-generation education.

There are multiple ways to assess whether a firm has financial conflicts of interest. First, understand their compensation method. Truly independent advisors are paid only by their clients, without any rewards or commissions paid by affiliated entities, fund managers, or other external service providers. Advisors who do not take funds from sources other than their clients can minimize or eliminate financial conflicts of interest with their clients. Such advisors are more likely to offer advice that is in the family's best interest, not because they can earn a commission by selling specific investment products.

The difference is independence. Family offices ideally are not affiliated with any bank, financial institution or asset manager. The advice they provide is strictly objective and without the conflict of a sales mandate or a financial interest in selling particular financial products or services. A wealth manager comes in many legal forms – private bank, trust company, brokerage firm, family office, multi-family office, financial planner, etc.

No, you won’t. While we insist on involving your family in the key decisions of managing your wealth, we also play a crucial role in execution by handling administrative tasks and supporting the execution of specific wealth management tasks. Since our consulting model is based on the premise that clients should be involved in the growth of their wealth, we do not take discretionary control over your assets. We help you determine the priorities and goals of wealth growth management and then act on your behalf. You can be as involved in the management of your wealth details as you wish, but you retain the power to make key decisions.

Discretionary management typically means that your advisor is authorized to execute wealth growth management tasks on your behalf. Your advisor has the authority to make decisions regarding your investments, financial planning, and wealth planning without your explicit consent. In this type of relationship, clients tend to become passive participants and lose the day-to-day connection with the management of their wealth.

We believe that clients should be active participants, always involved and continually learning. We serve as non-discretionary advisors because we not only want to help them manage their wealth but also to provide them with the knowledge necessary to make crucial decisions now and in the future.

We are only paid by our clients. Since every family is different, each family is unique—thus, the services for each family are customized. Our preferred method of pricing is a fixed fee, which takes into account the specific nature of your family and the range of services you require from UP.

No. Our fee structure is simple: we are paid by our clients and only by them. It’s transparent. Simple. We are not paid any commissions or incentives by any manager, service provider, or financial firm. We do not charge ‘extra’ for this, or ‘more’ for that. You pay only the fee we agree to.

UPhas extensive resources in the field of wealth management, including investment, estate and tax planning, family governance, immigration planning and education, risk management, as well as data aggregation and reporting. In other areas, we offer services such as overseas education, overseas medical care (including IVF), high-quality lifestyle services such as executive jet travel, yacht outings, RV self-driving tours, cruise vacations, etc. Once we identify the areas in which your family needs support, we will work with you to find solutions that are both cost-effective and efficient, focusing on both short-term and long-term considerations.

Internal Talent

UP FAMILY OFFICE possesses a deep bench of internal investment talent, with expertise and experience in a wide range of key investment areas. Leveraging years of comprehensive investment management experience, we assure you that we have the knowledge to help you make critical decisions regarding investments.

Our investment advisory services are built upon these internal resources, including:

• Strategic Investment Committees
• Executive Committees
• Manager Advisor Selection Processes
• Investment Talent

Yes, we are able to customize a financial plan for your family. We will thoroughly understand your financial goals, risk tolerance, family situation, and specific needs, and then tailor a personalized financial plan accordingly. This plan will cover various aspects, including portfolio management, tax planning, insurance needs, retirement planning, children's education funds, estate planning, and more. Our goal is to assist you in achieving your financial objectives and to provide support and guidance throughout your financial journey.

Yes. Our colleague experts work with you and your family to create a customized learning experience, which includes family meetings, focusing on key components of wealth growth, including:

• Family Decision Agreements
• Succession Planning
• Wealth Transfer
• Family Governance Structures
• Leadership Roles and Structures
• Immigration Planning
• Next Generation Education

A key component of any comprehensive wealth management plan is a review of insurance, tax, and estate planning. Our experienced wealth planning directors can collaborate with your family's trustees (whether companies or individuals) and estate and tax planning professionals to ensure they fulfill their duties in a manner aligned with your overall enterprise objectives. While we do not provide legal or tax advice, we will work with your estate and tax advisors to assist in reviewing what they are doing for your family and ensuring they coordinate seamlessly and provide effective services at reasonable costs.

Our review can encompass any or all of the following:

• Life insurance
• Estate planning
• Education funds
• Estate distribution
• Estate tax liability review
• Wealth transfer analysis
• Corporate entity review

Communication strategies are an integral part of any wealth growth. While we can't guarantee family harmony, we can commit to working with each family member to ensure they can express concerns, voice interests, discuss challenges, and participate in future planning. This facilitated communication often reduces conflicts as your family members feel their voices have been heard and they have been involved in decisions regarding the management of your family's wealth growth.

To help address any challenges your family may encounter, in addition to our in-house experts, we also collaborate with leading providers to offer family governance and financial literacy support.

It depends. If you have a strategic project related to your overall wealth enterprise, then it's possible. Alternatively, if you need a diagnostic to help understand the complexity of your existing wealth growth and provide recommendations on how to optimize it, that's also possible. However, we generally do not offer "piecemeal consulting services" and prefer that families hire us as a full-time family office. In this type of relationship, our collaboration scope can be broad or narrow, depending on what makes sense for your family and can evolve with your family's wealth growth.

If this solution doesn't suit you, we may recommend advisors based on the type of work your family may be looking for.

In terms of communication among family members, there is nothing more important or complex in wealth management than family governance. Our colleague experts have decades of experience helping families navigate the myriad challenges of wealth life. When working with your family, we consider:

Family values and mission statements

• Family agreements
• Succession plans
• Financial literacy education
• Family meetings
• Immigration planning
• Next generation education

IT’S NOT ABOUT US, IT’S ABOUT YOU.

Our investment advisory services are centered around you. Our services are tailored to your family, helping you oversee and optimize your investment portfolio, reflecting your unique wealth goals and objectives while balancing the risks and opportunities associated with global capital markets.

Our investment advisory includes:

1. Investment advisory diagnostics
2. Customized investment plans
3. Strategic investment committees
4. Executive committees
5. Research managers
6. Internal talent and client support, including:

• Asset allocation
• Portfolio construction
• Execution support
• Creative review

You don't need to switch banks. As your family advisor, we collaborate with each of your service providers to ensure they are committed to serving your best interests. Through comprehensive reporting, we review transactions, confirm pricing, examine commissions, identify errors, and verify that the fees you agree to pay are indeed the fees you are being charged.

You don't need to leave your current financial service provider. Our mission is to enhance and optimize your wealth management by assisting you in building your wealth growth. We understand that, based on your level of wealth, you may need multiple financial service providers, and you find value in those relationships. We work with your financial service providers to ensure the services they provide align with your best interests and are reasonably priced.

It's not about us, it's about you—we work with you and your family in a way that is most beneficial to you.