From Barron's Penta blog:
Kirby Rosplock is intimately familiar with the issues debated in her recently published book The Complete Family Office Handbook. The 39-year old from Jupiter, Florida not only served as director of research at GenSpring Family Offices
for a better part of a decade, but was also client material, when, in
2007, her fourth generation family-timber business, Babcock Lumber, sold
92,000 acres of Florida ranch land.
After her family’s liquidity event, Rosplock was left both cash flush
and wondering if she could keep the family together. At GenSpring, she
calmly sat across the table coaching a client through their troubles;
suddenly, the emotional-side and sheer complexity of her own situation
had her looking for guidance. “I looked to my book shelf to see what
would be helpful and this book didn’t exist,” she said.
So she wrote the book she wished she had back in 2007. Back then, for
example, her family was “facing a number of issues that were new.”
Though the family was tied together by their foundation and a few still
held board seats at Babcock, most of their wealth had long since been
tied up in various operating businesses. After the payout, family
members could afford to go their own way.
So Rosplock’s first issue to negotiate – universal to all
multi-generational families after a liquidity event – arose from a major
philosophical question: Should family members keep managing their
assets together or should they all go their separate ways?
In the end, Rosplock’s relatives separated their wealth, each sending
their share of the spoils to single family offices, multifamily
offices, and to accounts belonging to the few do-it-yourselfers who were
comfortable dictating their own financial strategies. Rosplock herself
decided not to step-in and start dispensing advice, even though working
as director of research at GenSpring more than qualified her to speak
up.
“It was better that they find their own way or seek out third-party
advisors,” she says. Probably a wise decision; the last thing she wanted
to do was start a feud or be perceived as a know-it-all. Everyone is,
after all, entitled to their own learning curve.
As Rosplock’s decision to stay quiet suggests, there is no one answer
for all families, she says. So her book serves as a starting point for
that initial philosophical discussion – How do we move forward from
here? – before tension, misinformation and perceived slights overwhelm
the dialogue.
The book combines Rosplock’s research with more than 60 interviews
conducted with family office executives, industry professionals, and
family members. It begins with a rather top-down view of family offices
– from how much a family needs in investable assets to start a single
family office (about $250 million, she claims) to their historical
origin and how the Rockefellers, Mellons, and DuPonts underpinned family
office development in the United States. Later chapters tackle issues
like family governance, succession planning, and regulatory compliance
standards....MORE
