For Family Offices

"Family offices are not corporate clients. They are not private clients either."

A family office is a firm-within-a-firm. ASJ Group coordinates trust, corporate and mobility desks under a single director, with director-only file access and no commission incentives.

Overview

How we work with family offices.

A family office is a firm-within-a-firm — corporate, private-client, mobility, real estate, philanthropy and reporting all running under one governance frame. ASJ Group coordinates the trust, corporate and mobility desks under a single director with director-only file access.

We do not run a family's capital. We build and govern the office; we introduce vetted CIOs, custodians and administrators — none of whom pay us. That independence is the point.

Every engagement is written up in a family-office charter that anchors decision rights, next-generation induction and dispute resolution. The legal and operational stack is built to serve the charter, not the other way around.

Common failure modes

What we've seen go wrong.

  • Building the operational stack before the governance charter, then rebuilding both when the family disagrees
  • Employing a CIO and administrators who receive product commissions from the funds they select
  • Consolidating all custody with one private bank, losing negotiating power and creating single-point-of-failure risk
  • Treating the next generation as beneficiaries rather than principals, and losing the family office in the second generation
Typical engagement

The shape of the work.

Every engagement is fixed-fee, director-led, and quoted in writing before any work begins.

  1. 01Family charter drafting with principals (4–6 weeks)
  2. 02Full legal and holding structure: trust, foundation, holdco, SPV, jurisdiction selection
  3. 03Operational build: custodian, banking, accounting, reporting, CIO and administrator introductions
  4. 04Governance handover: board packs, policies, annual calendar
Frequently asked

Questions we hear from family offices.

Single-family or multi-family office?
Below roughly $250m of assets, a well-run multi-family office is usually more cost-efficient. Above that, single-family becomes competitive and gives full control. We help families make the call before building either.
Do you take commissions from CIOs or custodians we hire?
No. ASJ Group is fee-only. Any referral fee, retrocession or product commission is disclosed and rebated to the family.
Can you work alongside our existing lawyer or accountant?
Yes. Most of our family-office engagements run alongside a family's long-standing lawyer and accountant. ASJ Group owns the governance and structuring; the family's existing advisors keep their operational roles.