How Canadian family offices fit in with global peers

A discussion with Paul Westall, co-founder of London-based Agreus, a global family offices resources and recruitment consultancy

Daina Lawrence, Financial Post  •  Financial Post
Published Jan 03, 2023  •  2 minute read
Agreus’s Paul Westall: ‘The roles we are seeing in Canada are often at the early stage of the family office.’
Agreus’s Paul Westall: ‘The roles we are seeing in Canada are often at the early stage of the family office.’ Photo by Claudine Hartzel Photography /Courtesy of Agreus

Paul Westall is co-founder of London, England-based Agreus Group, a global resources and recruitment consultancy.

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As Agreus, founded in 2010, works with family offices around the world, Westall sees the commonalities and differences in issues such as compensation benchmarking, intergenerational leadership, succession planning and hiring for cultural fit.

Here he discusses his observations on how Canadian family offices fit in with their global peers.

Have you noticed anything about investing styles in Canadian family offices, especially compared with global peers?

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“I think Canadian family offices have been following a similar trend to their global peers, in the fact that they are diversifying their investment exposure with an increase in private equity. However, we feel that the Canadian family office market is still in its infancy compared to their U.S. neighbours and European family offices.

We are seeing more Canadian family offices looking at wealth preservation and moving away from holding all their wealth in their operating business (that created their wealth) and investing in a broader set of liquid asset classes.”

What trends do you see in staffing family offices, especially comparing Canadian ones with global peers?

“Because their global peers tend to be more established, there are more roles that are driven by a change in investment strategy. For example, there is a need for more private-equity expertise in-house, or replacement of long-standing senior level staff.

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Whereas, the roles we are seeing in Canada are often at the early stage of the family office [life cycle] so they need staff that can help establish and set up the family office.”

What is unique, if anything, about the Canadian family office?

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“From our experience globally, we see commonalities between why family offices are set up. The only difference we see is to what stage in the life cycle each country is at. For example, in Asia and the Middle East, they are at the nascent stage and, therefore, often there are more family members involved in the family office. This tends to reduce as the market matures.”

What are the most common services within family offices in general?

“Every family office is different. The phrase, ‘Once you have seen one family office, you have seen one family office,’ springs to mind.

However, the trends we have seen are that there is always some form of in-house accounting and finance expertise (at various levels) and there are regularly in-house investment expertise [roles needed].”

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

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