Profile: How One Family Maintained Wealth for Centuries

NEWSLETTER

Family office insights this week:

• Profile of a family that maintained wealth for centuries

• How to help the next gen: burn your Bitcoin keys

• An interview with the CEO of a 100-year old family office

• Beast Games: an abject display of poor decision-making around money

• A read on the fortunes of great industrial families

Profile: How One Family Maintained Wealth for Centuries

Multi-generational wealth beyond a thousand years - the definition of Old Money.

This week we spoke with the young principal from an ultra-high-net work family that traces their wealth back over a thousand years to 7th century Europe.

Complete with nobility and castles, this is the very definition of Old Money.

He provides a brief look at how they generated their wealth, why wars turned out to be strangely fortuitous in preserving wealth and how a long-term attitude supersedes everything.

The structure 

Location: “Europe, but I would rather not disclose!” 

Family office type: “Not officially a family office, but discretion is important.”

Origins: “France and England, of minor nobility - we can trace our lineage to the 7th century.”

AUM: “Level of wealth is $130m - $180m, though very difficult to pin down!”

Source of wealth

“Our origin of the wealth is principally land, a sugar plantation business from the 1700s, a bank, and my ancestors' toys!”

“Have had many flame-out ancestors that made fortunes and lost them all, but for some reason we have kept all their possessions and some of this today has become quite valuable: Marie Antoinette's yacht furniture, diamonds from India and paintings.”

“I exclude Castles from the asset list as they are a huge resource drain. My father sold four castles in his lifetime leaving me with only one!”

“My mother is English, and has a trust from the 19th century that operates with Primogeniture. I have three sisters, but as the oldest male, that is for me.”

A history of war and succession

“A principal luck factor has been the impact of wars: instead of dividing fortunes among male heirs for multiple successive generations my family has had the misfortune of losing all male descendants save one in war.” 

“This led to concentration of wealth among one heir; usually at a young age. It created a ‘culture’ of inheritance as early as possible. I started inheriting from my father at 18 gradually taking over responsibilities for his affairs.”

Survival instinct

“On my father's side I can’t see anyone having a ‘job’ for a good 200 years, which has probably given us this survival instinct. Survival isn’t about making small decisions to increase returns marginally, it is making big decisions to not get crushed entirely."

Notable success 

“The best success story I can think of is my father, who put all the financial assets away and never used them in his lifetime as he had a successful career. He had no financial acumen at all, but had the foresight to dollarize our fortune and keep assets invested in the USA.”

“The best success story I can think of is my father, who put all the financial assets away and never used them in his lifetime as he had a successful career. He had no financial acumen at all, but had the foresight to dollarize our fortune. When the EU went for the Euro, he went for the dollar. That one big decision made all the difference, and he hasn’t made a single other decision since."

Lifestyle

“I don’t enjoy most of the trappings of wealth - I fly economy when it isn't too painful to do so. My biggest expenses are the nine homes that I maintain for myself and relatives for whom I am responsible.” 

Investments

“What is liquid is invested in the S&P 500 at 90%. Illiquid assets are legacy toys, art, and real estate handed down over generations.”

“I have some stocks that have been owned for 100+ years that I cannot come around to selling, like railroad stocks and individual private companies. Our best performance has been Microsoft!”

“From our experience I think the best wisdom is to not try and be too clever, invest wisely for the long term, and educate successive generations on how to handle wealth.”

Managing generational wealth 

“All investments are handled by me personally. My father had an advisor who got us invested in the Madoff scheme, so I got rid of them! We use private banks for their high quality service. A good private bank and an assistant can do the work of many employees - being forced to avoid complexity allows you a lot more flexibility when you need it." 

“The only magic bullet is long-term thinking. Each successive generation is but a steward for the next.” 

“My father instilled in me from a very young age: ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.’”

Succession starts early

“My father and I speak daily and have been planning his succession since I was 18 years old.”

“Daily discussions on legal structures and transmission mechanisms have been key in propelling us further.” 

“Succession planning evolves and we have been transmitting assets to me and my three sisters for the last 15 years.”

𝕏 highlights

Family office services: in-house vs outsourced.

Are billionaires sacrificing family relationships to build wealth?

Michael Saylor on burning his Bitcoin keys.

 💼 where to work

Three notable family office job opportunities open this week…

Office Manager - Private Family Office (New York / Single Family Office)

Senior Associate - Private Family Office (New York / Single Family Office)

Operations Coordinator - Private Family Office (Houston / Single Family Office) 

“Reframe how you think about and communicate your skill set and technical expertise in terms of what problems you solve. All families are different but they have many of the same problems at the end of the day.” - Brian Adams, Mack International

📚 what to read

On topic for this week is Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World’s Great Family Businesses by David S Landes. It chronicles the fortunes of the great families behind the banking, auto and raw materials industries.

📻 what to listen to

In this episode of Talking Billions, host Bogumil Baranowski speaks with Andrew Busser, CEO of Pitcairn, a 100-year old family office. It’s an engaging interview about the lessons of managing multi-generational family fortunes, taking a long-term view and learning to make mistakes.

📺 what to watch

Not a recommendation per se, but I watched a couple of episodes of Beast Games with my kids. It’s dark, it’s dystopian and so far an abject display of poor decision-making around money.

And finally…

Last week’s poll asked the level of experience family offices require in candidates. The overwhelming majority (70%) said 4 years+.

On the topic of jobs, next week the Careers newsletter will be back. Sharing top family office jobs and top family office candidates. Email [email protected] for further details.

Lastly, I did an interview in the Adam Metz newsletter this week. You can read it here.

Until next week, see you on 𝕏 or LinkedIn.

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