A founder, four banks, eleven entities, no single view

What was wrong

He sold the company eighteen months ago. Tens of millions landed in four places, not one.

The Portuguese private bank holds the largest slice and sends a PDF each quarter. The Swiss bank holds the second, reports in CHF, and prices the structured notes it sold him on its own curve. Interactive Brokers holds what he trades himself. The UAE bank was opened for a Dubai move that half-happened: the Emirates ID exists, the apartment exists, the 183 days do not.

Around the money sit eleven entities. A Portuguese holding and two operating leftovers. A Madeira company set up on a friend’s advice. Three UAE vehicles, one of which has never traded. A Delaware LLC from the exit that still holds escrow rights and a loss carry-forward nobody has read. Two personal companies for property. One foundation idea that became a company by mistake.

Advice came from three people who had never met: an accountant in Lisbon who sees the Portuguese entities, a lawyer in Dubai who sees the UAE ones, and a private banker who sees his own custody and nothing else. The founder’s spreadsheet was the only place all four banks appeared together. Its last edit was eleven months old.

Nobody, including him, could say what he owned on a given Tuesday.

What it cost

I rebuilt the picture from statements. Three numbers came out.

Cash. Several million sat idle across the four banks, in six currencies, earning between 0% and 1.2%. Against a 3% short-term government yield, that is a five-figure sum a year not received.

Overlap. The Swiss notes and the Portuguese bank’s discretionary mandate both held the same seven large-cap names. His equity exposure was 11 points higher than either banker believed, because each saw only half.

Residence. The Dubai move had been half-executed for fourteen months. Under the treaty tie-breaker he was still Portuguese-resident, and the UAE entities had been set up assuming he was not. Two of the three needed restructuring before the year closed. The fix cost a five-figure sum in fees. Had nobody asked, the exposure was in the high six figures.

The number I defend is the first. A five-figure sum a year in idle cash is not a market view. It is an administrative failure, and it recurs every year nobody consolidates.

He is not unusual. Campden Wealth’s 2025 survey of 146 family offices found that about one in three still produce more than 50% of their reporting manually. Those are offices with staff. He had a spreadsheet.

What the fix looked like

Not a fifth bank. Not a fourth advisor. An operating layer above the ones he had.

• One data feed. Daily position and transaction files from all four custodians into a single aggregation platform, mapped to one chart of accounts. A low five-figure sum a year at his size.
• One entity map. Eleven entities on one page: ownership, directors, bank accounts, year-ends and the advisor responsible for each. Three were marked for closure.
• One reporting cadence. A monthly consolidated statement in EUR, by entity and look-through by asset class. The private banker’s PDF became an input, not the report.
• One residence decision. Dubai or Lisbon, decided with dates, then sent to all three advisors in the same email. He chose Lisbon for two more years.
• One owner of the calendar. The administrative back office holds filings, board minutes, bank KYC renewals and the dividend flows between entities. The accountant and the lawyer now take instructions from one place.
• One investment policy. A written target allocation, so the two discretionary banks are measured against one benchmark and against each other. This is investment oversight, not management. PWA holds no mandate, places no trades and takes no commission.

He did not need a family office. He needed the part of one that keeps the records. The same pattern at larger scale is in the wealth analytics case study.

What would a written second opinion have caught?

Three things, in the first week, from documents he already had: the idle cash by currency, the equity overlap between the two discretionary banks, and the residence mismatch under the UAE entities. Each is visible in bank statements and company registers. None requires a meeting. The report would have put the residence question first, because it had a deadline.

Request a written second opinion

Sources

• Campden Wealth / AlTi Tiedemann Global, The Family Office Operational Excellence Report 2025 (first published 2025; 146 family offices surveyed November 2024 to March 2025), p. 77: “About one out of three family offices perform more than 50% of their reporting manually.” PDF

Pedro Souto is the founder of PWA — Private Wealth Advisory. He works with UHNW founders, families, and single-family offices to build independent advisory structures around complex wealth — consolidating reporting, challenging advisors, and creating clarity across institutions, assets, and decisions.