That there has been a great deal of change is not in doubt. Sandaire, which has offices in London and Singapore with a total of over $4 billion in assets under management, took an important step in 2014 by acquiring private investment office Lord North Street; Alexandra Altinger was named chief executive of the expanded firm. The coming together of Sandaire and Lord North Street was part of a pattern of firms of this size merging for the same reasons that other parts of the wealth sector have seen M&A deals: a desire for more scale and associated efficiencies, buying power and range of service. For example, Stonehage and Fleming Family & Partners joined hands in 2015. 

A question that arises is at what point does a family office business morph into becoming just another wealth management house, and potentially lose what makes it a special sort of “family entity”? The boundaries are not always easy to set. 

Alex Scott, chairman, told this news service recently that the firm has more upside potential, and explained how he will know when expansion has reached a limit.

“We are moving from being a boutique to being a medium-sized company,” he said from his firm’s smart offices in Wigmore Street, London. At present, the firm, called Sandaire Investment Office these days, has around 40 clients and 40 employees, the kind of ratio “you just won’t find at a bank”, Scott said. “I want to be able to look at a client in the eye and say it is in our mutual interests to grow the business. When I can’t do that then I hope we have the discipline to think about what we do,” Scott continued.

A problem will arise if, because of hasty expansion, advisors are not so close to their clients. “We are not even close to that,” Scott said.

“Could we work for 200 families? Not at our current configuration, no,” Scott said.

Growth
Sandaire has come a long way. Scott founded it in September 1996 to manage the wealth of the Scott family following the sale of Provincial Insurance and Exeter Bank and to provide this same service to other families and foundations. 

Singapore
In 2012, Sandaire opened an office in Singapore (Amoy Street). Given the continued and rising importance of the Asian city-state in the global wealth market, such a move has proved to be wholly beneficial, Scott said.

“There were two reasons for this is an incredible opportunity."

Scott said his firm is absolutely committed to the Singapore market; he travels there frequently and said his own family insurance business had a presence in Singapore, so there is an ancestral connection. 

Even so, at present Sandaire is what Scott calls a “London-centric” business – “it is part of what we are and it gives us resilience,” he said.

The team is a substantial one. Besides Scott and the CEO, Altinger, is Marc Hendriks, chief investment officer, who joined in 2009. Other senior figures include Samuel Bosanquet, client relationship director; George de Courcy-Wheeler, deputy CIO; Charlotte Filsell, head of client relationship management, and Bonny Landers, head of sustainable responsible and impact investing. Nadav Lehavy is managing director in Singapore. Lucy Lynch holds the role of head of legal, risk and compliance; Bruce Offergelt is chief financial officer.

With such a group of senior staff with considerable expertise in place, Scott said that the firm is able to be an attractive proposition for wealthy families thinking of creating a family office of their own but mindful of the costs involved. “What we represent for such people is an alternative,” he said.

In this age of buzz around “robo-advisors” and the supposed benefits of modern technology but with markets volatile and geopolitics uncertain, Sandaire is in a good position to prove the continued merits of the human touch in managing wealth for families. It will hope the next 20 years prove as successful as the last.