The study, Raising Capital from Single-Family Offices - Considerations for Financial Firms, was co-authored by Forbes Insights and Russ Alan Prince, and is based on the views of 151 executive directors at SFOs.

Participants were polled in the first quarter of the year and were required to have current allocations to either hedge funds or private equity. Of these, around 85 per cent reported currently investing in hedge funds and around half have active private equity investments.

The report found that mean investible assets of single family offices have risen significantly from a year earlier, standing at around $416 million in 2011. This is compared to the $236 million reported last year. Meanwhile, nearly all these offices rely on external investment managers, with around 22 indicating they also have internal capabilities.

Nearly 90 per cent of the executive directors said they are likely to increase exposure to hedge funds this year, with the most popular strategies being long/short equity (53 per cent), distressed (49 per cent), arbitrage (33 per cent), managed futures (25 per cent), and global macro (25 per cent).

Meanwhile, some 70 per cent intend to allocate more money to private equity. Among the top responses for preferred investments were established companies (59 per cent), mezzanine financing (39 per cent), and second-round financing (32 per cent).

The report comes at a time of much discussion on the changing structure of the family office, in the face of rising running costs. At the recent Family Office Forum in Chicago, industry executives discussed how SFOs were reviewing their outsourcing options - a trend widely seen as benefiting multi-family offices.

“One of the greatest challenges in understanding the single family office sector arises in defining its scope. Surging interest in the space has compelled a variety of wealth management firms to market themselves as family office providers, contributing to widely disparate notions of what these structures encompass,” said Rick Flynn, head of the Rothstein Kass Family Office Group.

“Our latest report illustrates the range of services typically offered by a typical single family office entity. Among shared characteristics, the most successful ventures recognized that the executive director is critical to cohesive management. Though the title can vary, the executive director often serves as a quarterback for the wealth management team. More frequently, this individual is exerting greater influence regarding investment decisions and due diligence processes.

“As a result, investment managers seeking to raise capital from the single family office community are best served by adopting a consultative approach – one that consider investment orientation alongside long-term objectives to gain insight into the ‘professional ecosystem’ at work.”