Family offices are a hot topic, and many UHNW families want to create them, but going solo is an expensive job if all services are conducted in-house. Partnering with existing institutions, via an outsourced FO model for example, can make more sense. We talk to Stonehage Fleming about this area.

With family offices featuring in the news with increasing frequency these days, it appears sometimes that every ultra-high net worth family wants one.

But while the minimum amount of money needed to run a single-family office varies depending on who one talks to, it also appears clear that for many families, building an SFO from scratch isn’t viable. 

For many wealth holders, then, joining a multi-family office or using an outsourced family office proposition of some kind, makes more sense. The firm Masttro, for example, reckons that a family must have at least $100 million to be a viable proposition; to join a multi-FO requires between $30 million and $100 million, and to use an outsourced family office can be achieved from $10 million or above.

This is the hard reality that explains why multi-family offices and providers of outsourced FO services have a business case. Priyanka Hindocha (main picture), partner and head of UK family office, Stonehage Fleming and her colleagues are busy framing clients' expectations and working out the optimum solution.  

“There are a few points to consider when setting up your own family office. Cost is certainly one. A bigger concern is succession planning,” Hindocha told WealthBriefing in a recent interview at her firm’s offices in St James’s Square, London. “At some point in time, the head of any single-family office will depart for a variety of reasons. Families and wealth creators are generally looking for a long-term partner that will support them across multiple generations. An outsourced family office does not suffer from a ‘key (wo)man’ risk and retains the knowledge and history of the family’s affairs across our teams.”

“Our role is to support families, entrepreneurs and single-family offices by acting as a combination of their outsourced chief financial officer and chief operating officer, sitting on the same side of the table as them and acting as a sounding board when it comes to decision-making,” Hindocha said. “The goal is reducing complexity and streamlining their affairs. We do this by spending time with families to understand their goals, ambitions, concerns, what is really ‘keeping them up at night.’ We can then support them with opportunities as well by taking the burden off their shoulders.”

This year has been busy for the firm, not only because of financial turmoil in global markets. There’s a new head: the firm appointed Stuart Parkinson as group CEO, taking the helm from Giuseppe Ciucci, executive chairman, who led the business as interim CEO after Chris Merry left in September 2023. Parkinson is based in London.

Time is money
For many of those who come to Stonehage Fleming, one resource they don’t typically have much of is time.

For some families, having a family office of their own becomes more of a burden and a cost than the problems and issues they were set up to deal with,” Hindocha said. Many clients want help in saving time. “A client might say, 'I have lots of priorities…please can you sort this out so I can do what I want to do',” she said. 

Asked if some clients come to Stonehage Fleming after a frustrating experience of building their own family office, she said: “We often meet families and wealth creators who present us with complicated structures. They may be struggling with the burden of coordinating advisors across various elements of their wealth and worried about how best to engage the next generation with the wealth as well as who will support the family when they have passed away or lost capacity. If these are the worries that are really keeping the leader of a family or an entrepreneur up at night, they should come to us.”

Stonehage Fleming’s family office services are charged to clients on a time-cost basis.

“We tend to agree fixed fees for ongoing work (billed on a quarterly basis) and would discuss fees for any ‘out of scope’ projects, for example, a relocation to another country, before commencing work. A family does not need to invest assets with us to be a client – this is a key differentiator for us,” Hindocha said. 

Unsurprisingly, Stonehage Fleming has focused much of its recent attention, where HNW and UHNW clients are concerned, on large UK tax changes such as the widening of inheritance tax and the end of the resident non-domicile system.

One of the key themes running up to 5 April 2025 was the changes to the UK tax landscape following the Budget of 30 October 2024, including the taxation of non-domiciled individuals but also in relation to changes to reliefs such as Business Property and Agricultural Property Relief, Hindocha said. 

WealthBriefing asked Hindocha how the outsourced family office model sits alongside the rest of what Stonehage Fleming does. 

As a true multi-family office, Stonehage Fleming puts the family at the heart of what they do, not just the family’s assets. By this, we mean that Stonehage Fleming supports families with all aspects of their affairs. Investment management can be a critical part of this, but it also involves (and starts with), strategy, and could move on to structuring, next generation engagement and many other elements. 

“Many families prefer a model where almost every element of their wealth is looked after by one firm – in which case they are advised by our family office team – may have assets managed by our investment management team, benefit from technical advice from our colleagues in our legal and tax advisory team and have their children mentored by leaders in our family governance and succession team. The idea is that advice is not given in silos but with knowledge of the family’s objectives and wider balance sheet. For other families, their sole relationship is with our family office department, where we work with a family’s other advisors (lawyers, accountants, investment managers) to ensure a streamlined approach.” 
 
“Families often come to us with a specific query relating to an ‘event.’ For example, a patriarch or matriarch has passed away and they would like a family office to prepare an ‘in case of emergency’ document so that their children understand who to speak to when the other parent passes away. Alternatively, the query could be around moving to/from the UK, strategic thinking before selling a business or looking for support through and after a divorce. Often, the ‘one off’ piece of work turns into ongoing support – the scope of which varies depending on the family or entrepreneur in question,” she said.

Hindocha also said that the term “family office” tends to be overused and connected to what is really an investment office. (This point also speaks to how some in the sector are trying to create a benchmark for the term "family office" and squeeze out those that don't deserve the appellation.)

Where clients come from
Hindocha said Stonehage Fleming has a “significant UK domestic client base”; it also works with South African families.

“We are seeing a trend of South American families coming to the UK as well. The reality is that most families these days have an international outlook, whether that is from an investment perspective or because they have family members in the US or in Asia,” she said. 

Without giving a number for the sort of advisor/client ratio that works at the firm, Hindocha said it concentrates on ensuring that every family has “two key points of contact within the group (a partner or director and a more junior team member) whose responsibility it is to coordinate other advisors, both internally and externally. 

“We often meet families and wealth creators who present us with complicated structures. They may be struggling with the burden of coordinating advisors across various elements of their wealth and worried about how best to engage the next generation with the wealth as well as who will support the family when they have passed away or lost capacity. If these are the worries that are really keeping the leader of a family or an entrepreneur up at night, they should come to us.”