• Most families view their SFO as mainly a private investment office. "Soft" responsibilities, like coordinating education, providing concierge services, and organizing philanthropy, are considered significantly less important SFO tasks.
• In most cases, families with SFOs are majority shareholders in their family's business operations and are intimately involved in the family business.
• Families are deeply involved in the operations of their SFO, and in nearly half of the offices studied, a family member acts as the head of the SFO.
• SFOs in the Americas more often recommend equity investments compared to those in Europe which suggest real estate.

Knowledge @ Wharton provides an analysis of the research in the recent article, "SFOs in Action: How the Richest Families Manage Their Wealth" which includes interviews with several SFO experts on general trends in the industry. One trend the study stresses is governance. "Governance is very important," Prof Amit tells Knowledge @ Wharton. "Interestingly enough, when we compared the Americas to Europe and the rest of the world, U.S. offices have the weakest governance."

The complete SFO survey is available, along with all Wharton Global Family Alliance research papers, case studies and materials, on the Wharton GFA Web site here: wgfa.wharton.upenn.edu.

Research Snapshot

IESE Business School's business journal, "Insight" has published a summary of the SFO study. In addition, the school interviewed Prof. Heinrich Liechtenstein for a video posted on their Web site. In the video Prof. Liechtenstein says, “This is the first time the phenomena of Single Family Office has been studied in an academically sound way. Also [in terms of scope] it’s also one of the biggest."

Wharton GFA in the News

TheStreet.com
June 5, 2008
Wharton GFA Profs. Raffi Amit and Richard Marston comment on banks viewing wealth management as a source of new growth. Prof. Amit notes that families will continue relying on Single Family Offices.
http://www.thestreet.com/s/banks-eat-from-hands-of-the-filthy-rich/markets/marketfeatures/10420008.html

Investment Executive
June 3, 2008
Prof. Raffi Amit is interviewed and Wharton GFA's Single Family Office survey is featured in an article entitled "A rare look into the ultra wealthy’s single-family offices: Managing wealth for a single family can make an advisor’s life easier on many fronts."
http://www.investmentexecutive.com/client/en/News/DetailNews.asp?Id=44842&cat=27&IdSection=27&PageMem=&nbNews=&IdPub=

IESE Insight
June 1, 2008
IESE Business School's journal, "Insight" has published a summary of the Wharton GFA-IESE joint Single Family Office study. In addition, the school interviewed Prof. Heinrich Liechtenstein for a video posted on their Web site.
http://insight.iese.edu/doc.asp?id=00818&ar=8

Forbes (from Knowledge @ Wharton)
May 16, 2008
Wharton GFA's Single Family Offices survey is analyzed and Wharton GFA Prof. Raffi Amit is interviewed.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/05/15/single-family-office-ent-fin-cx_kw_0515whartonsfo.html

Reuters
May 13, 2008
Wharton GFA Prof. Jeremy Siegel tells wealth managers that, despite economic conditions, he still believes there is a "a strong bias in favor of equities."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUKN1341023420080513

For regular news updates visit the Wharton GFA newsroom

Kiva: Improving People's Lives, One Small Loan at a Time
May 28, 2008
Nearly everyone told Matt and Jessica Flannery that their idea -- a website where people could make micro loans to individual borrowers in the developing world -- wouldn't work. Venture capitalists couldn't see how anyone could make big money on tiny loans. Foundations wouldn't support something that they saw as commerce, not charity. But the Flannerys persisted, and today, the website that they created -- Kiva.org -- has so far assisted about 40,000 borrowers in 40 countries and provided a total of $27 million in funding. Matt Flannery, Kiva's CEO, and Premal Shah, its president, spoke about their business at the recent University of Pennsylvania Microfinance Conference.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1967.cfm

Doing a Sports Deal? Get Personal
May 28, 2008
As in any negotiation, money and performance will usually make or break a sports contract deal. But emotions can be a wild card, according to Wharton Sports Business Initiative director Kenneth L. Shropshire. During a recent Wharton presentation, he talked about the non-financial incentives that helped seal contract deals with star athletes Alex Rodriguez, Reggie White and others; his relationships with boxing promoter Don King and 1984 Olympics organizer Peter Ueberroth, and the importance of personal relationships in getting deals done.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1966.cfm

Why the Credit Crunch Should Help Corporate M&A
May 28, 2008
Credit market turmoil is altering the global playing field in buyouts and acquisitions, a field rife with complaints in recent years about too much money chasing too few good deals. The credit shortage puts pressure on pricing and transactional quality, while also giving public companies a better shot at acquisitions that the more aggressive private equity firms might previously have snatched away. These are some practical implications of a paper presented at a recent Wharton conference sponsored by the Weiss Center for International Financial Research. The paper documents the pricing anomalies that have characterized private equity transactions in recent years. Chief among them: The greater the leverage applied to a deal, the greater the price it has tended to command. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1969.cfm

It's Biotech's Year: 'Eight Great' Business Plans to Help People Live Longer and Better
May 14, 2008
A decade ago, when the Wharton Business Plan Competition (BPC) began, the Internet dominated discussions about entrepreneurship. That was before the bubble burst and many dot.coms were revealed to be, in the words of New Yorker writer John Cassidy, little more than dot.cons. These days, the new arena of interest is healthcare, specifically biotech, as evidenced by the number of biotech-related business plans submitted by the student entrepreneurs who competed in this year's event. Knowledge@Wharton offers brief descriptions of the BPC's 'Eight Great' finalists. Good luck picking the winner. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1960.cfm

An Ideal Marketplace: For-profit Businesses Helping, Not Exploiting, the Poor
May 14, 2008
Can a company make money from the work of impoverished people in the developing world without taking advantage of them? For Patrick Byrne, the answer is a qualified yes. Byrne believes that he has found a way for his company, Overstock.com, to benefit while it helps developing-world artisans connect with developed-world customers. But for Chuck Waterfield, creator of Microfin -- a software program he wrote for microlenders -- the answer is a qualified no, at least as it applies to Compartamos, a well-known microfinance lender operating in Mexico. Both men spoke at this year's University of Pennsylvania Microfinance Conference.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1959.cfm

Please share any comments or questions you have with us. You can reach us by email at wgfa@wharton.upenn.edu or by phone at +1.215.898.4470.

The Wharton GFA Team

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