Single-family office

A single-family office (SFO) is a private company set up by one family to run the operations of its wealth. Its staff, employed or contracted, answer to that family alone. It is the dedicated version of a family office; the shared version is a multi-family office.

What a single-family office covers

An SFO does the work no single bank or advisor is paid to do across the whole balance sheet. In practice:

• Consolidated reporting: one view of every account, entity and property, across banks and jurisdictions.
• Entity administration: holding companies, trusts and foundations kept current, with accounts, filings and minutes.
• Advisor coordination: tax, legal and investment advisors briefed from the same facts, with someone checking their work.
• Investment oversight: an investment policy, manager selection and monitoring.
• Family governance: family meetings, decision rules and preparation of the next generation.

The assets usually stay with banks and custodians. The office decides what to ask of them and checks what comes back.

What does a single-family office do?

A single-family office runs the operating side of one family’s wealth. It consolidates reporting across banks and entities, administers the holding structures, coordinates tax, legal and investment advisors, oversees managers against an agreed policy, and organises family governance. Its staff work only for that family, so its priorities are not shaped by a product to sell.

When the full structure is not the answer

What the bank pitching an SFO set-up rarely says: the structure is a fixed cost, and most of that cost is salaries. Many families and founders have exactly the problems an SFO solves (several banks, entities in more than one country, no single view) well before they have the scale to employ a team for them. Building the office anyway produces an expensive shell. Skipping it leaves the coordination to whoever in the family has time.

The middle path keeps the functions and drops the building: define what an office would do, then give each function to someone paid by the family, and only by the family. We set out that design in the minimum viable family office. PWA designs and runs the operating layer around private wealth, from administration and back office to wealth planning and structuring. PWA does not manage money, hold mandates, take commissions or give regulated investment, tax or legal advice.

If you are weighing whether you need an SFO, a written second opinion on your current set-up is a faster first step than a hiring plan.

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This entry is part of PWA’s plain-language glossary of terms used in modern family office architecture.