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Governing Families, Not Corporations
Family governance is how families stay in control — borrowed governance is often how they lose it. The three tensions, the governance tools, and three real cases.
Read the white paperFamily Office Knowledge Base
Guides and insights written by practitioners who have built family offices and run them on behalf of principals and their families. Every piece is drawn from work in the field, for the families who carry the decisions.
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What Is a Family Office? A Practitioner's Guide
Our partners have spent decades inside family offices. This guide is the definition we work from: what an office does and what it does not, the single, multi and embedded forms, what one costs, and how a family sets it up. It is for families deciding whether they need one. The conclusion is plain: the office exists so that the family stays in control of what it owns.
Gilles ErulinRead the guide →
Single Family Office vs Multi-Family Office: Which Model Fits Your Family?
A practical comparison of the single family office and the multi-family office: what each model controls, where the economics make sense, and how families actually decide between them.
Andy Wadley
How to Choose a Wealth Manager for a Family Office
The durable criteria that separate a useful wealth manager from a well-marketed one, seen from inside a family office.
John Saunders
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Trusts and Family Control: The Trade-Off to Weigh Before You Sign
Andy WadleyFamilies reach for a trust to solve a tax problem and discover later what it cost them in control. A practical look at the trade-off at the centre of every trust decision, and how to weigh it before you sign.
The biggest family office risks sit inside the family
Aymeric Erulin
Family Office Fees: What the Family Pays, and to Whom
Aymeric Erulin
What a Family Office Costs in Paris, Brussels, Luxembourg and Geneva
Aymeric ErulinSame family, same portfolio, same scope of services: depending on the city it sits in, the same family office can cost almost twice as much to run. Two profiles, priced in euros, in Paris, Brussels, Luxembourg and Geneva.
Setting Up a Family Office After Selling the Business
Aymeric ErulinA sale closes and a family becomes liquid overnight. The work that follows is rarely the work the family expects. What to decide in the first eighteen months, what to postpone, and what to build.
Paul Reynolds joins Westwick Partners
Gilles Erulin
Westwick Melrose & Cromwell is now Westwick Partners
Gilles Erulin
How to Choose a Wealth Manager for a Family Office
John SaundersThe durable criteria that separate a useful wealth manager from a well-marketed one, seen from inside a family office.
The Family Office Investment Committee: How Families Keep Control of Their Own Capital
Gilles ErulinThe investment committee is where a family decides how its capital is used. Built well, it keeps the family in control. Built badly, it hands that control to the room. A practical guide to composition, mandate, and the line between deciding and executing.
The Interim Family Office CEO: When It's Needed and What For
Aymeric Erulin
Founder Syndrome: when one person is the only governance
Aymeric Erulin
Family Office Services: What a Family Office Actually Does
Andy Wadley"Family office services" is what the market sells. Seen from inside the office, they are functions, and the list is shorter and harder than the brochures suggest. A working map of what a family office does, and what it should never delegate.
What Is a Family Office? A Practitioner's Guide
Gilles ErulinEveryone in wealth management now wants to sell to family offices. Few can say plainly what one is. A practitioner's definition: what a family office does, what it costs, and how to tell a real one from the label.
Family governance is not corporate governance
Gilles Erulin
Bill Ackman's family office: trust is not a governance model
Isabelle Irani
Family Office Succession Planning: Preparing the Family and the Office
Aymeric ErulinSuccession is the moment a family is most likely to lose control. Handled early, it becomes a family project. A practical guide to preparing the next generation, the knowledge one person holds, and the team that has to evolve.
Family Constitutions: What to Write, and What to Leave Out
Isabelle IraniMost family constitutions are long, bank-drafted and unread. The short one a family writes itself is the one it reaches for when a decision splits the family. What belongs in it, what to leave out, and who should hold the pen.
Use Case: Reducing a Family Office's Cost Base
Aymeric Erulin
Returning control of the family office to the next generation
Gilles Erulin
Single Family Office vs Multi-Family Office: Which Model Fits Your Family?
Andy WadleyA practical comparison of the single family office and the multi-family office: what each model controls, where the economics make sense, and how families actually decide between them.
How to Choose a Family Office Adviser
Aymeric ErulinThe few durable criteria that separate a useful family office adviser from the crowd, and where the adviser's role ends and the family office manager's begins.
Most "family offices" you meet are not family offices. Here's how to tell.
Aymeric Erulin
The voice missing from the family office conversation
Aymeric Erulin
Family Office Club Deals: A Practical Guide to Co-Investing Well
Aymeric ErulinA practical guide to family office club deals: how they come together, where they go wrong, and the due diligence and terms that make co-investing hold.
Selling a Family Business: Managing the Process in the Family's Interest
John SaundersSelling a business is the family's decision. The process that follows lands on a family office already running at capacity. A practical guide to running a disposal, stage by stage, so it serves the family.
Definition: the Family Office “Club deal”
Aymeric Erulin
Staffing a single family office: the four traits that matter most
Gilles Erulin
How to Set Up a Family Office
Aymeric ErulinHow to decide whether a single family office makes sense — and how to build one that actually serves the family rather than the advisers around it.
The Cost Structure of a Single Family Office
Aymeric ErulinWhat a single family office costs to run, what the bank surveys report, what they leave out, and what the bill looks like once the cost of investing is counted.
How to keep a family entrepreneurial across generations
Gilles Erulin
Why ETFs alone are not enough for a family office portfolio
Gilles Erulin
What should our family wealth stand for? A values alignment guide for UHNW families
Isabelle IraniAligning family wealth with shared values is one of the defining challenges of multigenerational wealth planning. This guide sets out how to approach it — from opening the conversation to translating shared principles into a coherent capital strategy.
The trustee in a family office — what the role requires and how to get it right
Andy WadleyThe duties of loyalty, prudence and care that govern a pension fund trustee govern a family office trustee equally. What differs is almost everything else: the regulatory framework, the investment mandate, the relationship with beneficiaries, and the time horizon over which the trustee is expected to think.
Westwick was built on the values of the Missi Dominici
Gilles Erulin
Why family offices and family businesses should not settle
Gilles Erulin
A practical guide to managing exits and buyouts in a single family office
Gilles ErulinDone well, an exit passes without leaving a mark. Done badly, it fractures the family for a generation. This guide sets out the elements to consider and the structures that, in our experience, actually hold.
What to expect behind family offices' "exclusive clubs"
Gilles ErulinAymeric Erulin"Buy-side only", "by invitation only", "principals only" — every week brings a new exclusive family office club. Families see the lure from miles away. A guide to which rooms are worth entering and which are selling something else.
Use case: designing and facilitating a family transmission workshop
Gilles ErulinAymeric Erulin
Internal liquidity in a family office: how to avoid forced joint ownership across generations
Gilles Erulin
A practical guide to onboarding the next generation in a family office
Aymeric Erulin86% of single family offices have no succession plan, yet most expect to hand over within a decade. The industry treats the handover as a technical matter for lawyers and tax accountants: it focuses on the vessel and ignores the crew. The survival of a family's legacy depends on the transition from wealth to wisdom — and onboarding the next generation is the most important strategic priority a family will face.
Should you outsource your family office? A practical guide to what to keep and what to delegate
Gilles Erulin"Family Office as a Service" promises efficiency without the in-house burden. It also asks you to outsource the stewardship of your family's legacy — a very different question. A guide to what to keep, what to delegate, and where to draw the line.
Twenty-six years inside the Pinault family office: what shaped Westwick's founder
Gilles Erulin
Selling a billion-dollar family asset: an 85% uplift between first bid and final price
Gilles Erulin
Why there is no ideal family office structure — and what to build instead
Gilles ErulinFamilies are constantly offered "ideal" SFO structures built around tax efficiency or governance frameworks. Anyone who has spent time in the space knows the universal template does not exist.
There is no war for talent in single family offices
Gilles ErulinThe "war for talent" in family offices is a story repeated at every event and on every LinkedIn feed. After thirty years in the trenches, the war is a phantom — and a profitable one for the people selling it.
Why top-tier advisers are worth their fees in a billion-dollar M&A deal
Gilles Erulin
Why some families paused their private equity allocations in 2026
Gilles Erulin
Single Family Office: three archetypes for efficient transmission
Gilles ErulinWhen deciding what a family office is for, families can (and must) choose between three archetypes. Each serves a different purpose; each has a different risk profile; and each dictates what the rest of the structure should look like.
The chairman's role in a family business: a practical guide
Gilles Erulin
How large families turn meritocracy from a slogan into a system: the induction program
Aymeric Erulin
Why family offices should never invest in what they don't understand
Gilles Erulin
On transitions in a family office: a conversation with PwC
Gilles Erulin
Why families create wealth, and the investment industry only redistributes it
Gilles Erulin
In a family office, "family" comes before "office"
Gilles Erulin
How to pay family members who sit on the board: a practical guide
Gilles Erulin
How family offices can stay immune to market volatility: our advice
Gilles Erulin
Why family unity is the first rule of long-term wealth
Gilles Erulin
Family business boards: hire competent directors, not just independent ones
Gilles Erulin
Use case: stepping into a family office when the CEO has left overnight
Gilles Erulin
How to structure bonuses in a single family office
Gilles Erulin
Why silence is disloyalty in a family office
Gilles Erulin
A creative exit for a regulated family asset
Gilles ErulinAndy Wadley
Why families should build a forty-year relationship with their bank
Gilles Erulin
Why a butler's mindset is the right posture in a family office
Gilles Erulin
Why family offices should choose conviction over diversification
Gilles Erulin
Checkpoint for Family Members: Are you the owner of your wealth, or its custodian?
Gilles Erulin
Family office exits: when a discount on a departing member's share is justified
Gilles Erulin
Art as a family asset: where to start.
Gilles Erulin
Why families holding gold long-term should own it physically
Gilles Erulin
When a family member wants to leave the family office
Gilles Erulin
Meritocracy vs. Heiritocracy: a family name is a responsibility, not a privilege.
Gilles Erulin
Why we serve the family, not the family office
Gilles Erulin