What is a Family office in Hong Kong?

The establishment of family offices typically begins with answering these two important questions: How much are your assets worth, and what services do you need?

Family office Hong Kong is generally categorized as the single-family office or Multi-family office. A single-family office (SFO) is most advantageous for those interested in having full control over the family wealth and how it is managed. With an SFO, the whole office is established according to the specifications of the investor. Hence, the services provided are fully personalized and designed to benefit the investor. Services provided by an SFO may be offered by other firms, financial or otherwise, but an SFO provides an integrated platform where the investor only deals with one entity to address concerns instead of different service providers. 

Family office Hong Kong

However, with much power over how the SFO is established and run also comes greater responsibility for its success or failure. This responsibility is fully exercised when you recruit and manage the SFO staff. Depending on the number and kind of services you require, the staff can be lean or large and the costs high. Another consideration is the need to establish processes and gain expertise for these services. Hiring a pool of people with expertise to brag translates to increased operational expense. Thus, it is but expected that an SFO should cost more.

A multi-family office (MFO), on the other hand, is more suitable for families who want better services than traditional management services but not as costly as an SFO. MFOs try to provide clients with the same services as an SFO at lower costs by having different families share the services as well as expenses. With an MFO, you will not need to create a new infrastructure, recruit staff, and develop processes. Even better, you will benefit from the economies of scale shared across families. The biggest disadvantage of an MFO is that it is not dedicated to one family so the attention of the staff is divided. It is also important to note that while an SFO's focus is solely on the interest of the investor, an MFO is more commercially driven. Most MFOs were established specifically to capture this market and are in it for the profit.