Insights
Spotlight on: Outsourced Family Investment Office
Steven Kettle, Partner of Stonehage Fleming Investment Management, unpacks our OFIO offering
Many of our clients have some investment experience but are looking for an investment offering whereby they can retain some degree of control over their portfolio while delegating day-to-day duties – such as investment selection and risk management – to a professional firm.
We sat down with Steven Kettle to discover how an Outsourced Family Investment Office (OFIO) can deliver this sort of solution.
What are the main advantages of an OFIO?
An OFIO provides families with oversight of their investment assets under a unified strategy, coordinating positions across asset classes and investment relationships. Services include governance, formulating an investment strategy, asset allocation, manager oversight, counterparty coordination, consolidated investment reporting and more.
How possible is it to personalise an OFIO?
Each OFIO engagement is bespoke, reflecting a family’s ‘investment personality’ – their investment philosophy, existing relationships, and strategic goals. As you’d expect, our clients are very diverse, ranging from a retired chairman of a financial organisation to a young technology entrepreneur – all of whom seek a ‘co-pilot’ to help oversee their investment assets.
We collaborate with a client’s existing service providers including their longstanding advisers, investment managers and already-established single-family offices to help ‘fill the gaps’. However, an OFIO can also act as a full-service alternative to a privately established single-family investment office.
What usually motivates a client to engage Stonehage Fleming’s OFIO team?
Often, a client comes to us following a liquidity event or are looking to professionalise their approach with regard to a longstanding portfolio as part of a succession planning strategy. In the case of the former, an OFIO offers both in-house and third-party treasury solutions to help families manage their cash efficiently, with the aim of achieving optimal yield while maintaining diversification and flexibility during periods of transition.
Does the OFIO only give clients access to Stonehage Fleming investment products?
No. Ours is an ‘open architecture’ model, meaning we source investments from a wide network – developed over decades – rather than relying only on in-house products. This open architecture approach ensures access to best-in-class opportunities across both public and private markets.
For over 25 years, Steven Kettle has worked with international families of substantial wealth advising them on investment governance, investment strategy and underlying portfolio investments.
For more information, contact the team at enquiries@stonehagefleming,com