As wealthy families grow more wealthy, so do their family offices. Forbes estimates that family offices around the globe manage $6 trillion in assets.
So, which are the biggest single-family offices in the world?
Rankings vary with market performance and depend on who is making the list. While the top three or four offices sit consistently at the top of most rankings, exact figures are tough to determine in a sector that prioritizes privacy.
Maintaining that privacy is becoming harder as family offices grow, says Matt Knight, executive director of the Alberta Business Family Institute at the University of Alberta. “When you get to this scale, flying under the radar can be quite difficult,” he says.
Among the advantages of growth, however, is the ability to hire significant talent.
“I think there’s tons of opportunities, but also tons of risks. You can get a lot more creative and inventive with how you go to market and how you look for new opportunities, but you also have that scrutiny side of things,” Knight adds. Being well known attracts people with sound business ideas that need investment, but it also draws outright scammers.
There is no easy way to characterize the top 10 family offices or the families behind them. You’ll note a few tech billionaires on the list, but also retailers, agrifood entrepreneurs and Canada’s own publishing royalty, the Thomson family.
Some are still at the founding stage, others are several generations into their wealth. Knight says these differences influence an office’s investment style. A founder-level office might take an entrepreneurial approach, while one with 300 cousins will have a different kind of governance and goals.
How much information is made public also varies widely from office to office. Jeff Bezos’s office lists companies to which it has provided seed or venture capital. Steven Ballmer’s website dwells principally on his family’s philanthropy.
The family office narrative can be a matter of practicality, Knight suggests.
“You can talk a lot more about the charitable and startup side than investing in publicly traded stocks or bonds because you can get into some regulatory issues if you’re too vocal,” he says.
This selection of 10 offices ranked by asset amount isn’t definitive, given the variance in publicly facing information, but it indicates the investment breadth of the world’s largest family offices.
1. Walton Enterprises
Based in Bentonville, Ark., the family office for the descendants of Walmart founder Sam Walton manages about $224 billion and is led by Sam Walton’s youngest son, Jim C. Walton. The office was founded in 1983, according to its LinkedIn page, and the foundation of the family’s wealth is retailer Walmart, which opened its first store in 1962.
The Waltons have a diverse investment portfolio beyond this majority holding, however, including a dominant stake in Arvest Bank. The family office also oversees the Waltons’ philanthropic endeavours, which focus on K-to-12 education, environmental causes and economic development in Arkansas.
2. Cascade Investment LLC
The Bill and Melinda Gates Investments’ family office, founded in 1995 and based in Kirkland, Wash., has assets of about $170 billion. Gates’ wealth, which originated with Microsoft, includes holdings in Apple, Amazon and Google as well as Canadian National Railways, U.S. Bancorp, hospitality firms and agriculture businesses.
The investments are designed “to ensure that the Gates Foundation and the Gates Family have all of the necessary resources to help achieve their philanthropic and personal goals,” according to the website of Cascade Asset Management, which oversees Cascade Investment.
3. Bezos Expeditions
Amazon, the largest e-commerce company in the world, is the foundation of Jeff Bezos’s wealth. His family office, founded in 2005 and based on Mercer Island, Wash., manages about $107 billion in assets.
Its website lists a plethora of investments, many of them in technology and health, as well as Bezos’s space venture, Blue Origin, and the Washington Post newspaper. Bezos has also invested in Vancouver-based General Fusion, a nuclear fusion startup. The family office oversees charitable ventures, including the Bezos Family Foundation, which focuses on education.
4. Bayshore Global Management LLC
Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his ex-wife, 23andme co-founder Anne Wojcicki, established Bayshore Global Management as their family office in 2005. The low-profile firm, with offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and Singapore, is thought to manage about $100 billion in assets.
Some analysts have said the office’s investments are of the standard equity, private equity and real estate variety, with a focus on ESG investing.
5. Mousse Partners
Mousse Partners, the family office of Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, owners of the luxury brand Chanel, was founded in 1979 and maintains headquarters in New York and the Cayman Islands. In June, Caproasia, a wealth analyst website in Hong Kong, reported the Wertheimer family’s worth at more than $100 billion, although other estimates peg it closer to $90 billion.
Details are scant on the firm’s investment focus, but a Bloomberg report in September indicated Mousse Partners has invested in fashion, finance and biotech firms.
6. Pontegadea Inversiones SL
This is the family office of Amancio Ortega, founder of the fashion retailer Zara. Estimates from the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute peg the office’s assets at close to $98 billion. The office, established in 2001 and based in La Coruna, Spain, invests in textiles, hospitality, renewable energy and real estate, including a warehouse in Burnaby, B.C.
7. The Ballmer Group
Founded in 2015 by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife, Connie, this office manages about $85 billion in assets. Its website focuses specifically on its philanthropic ventures, which are “committed to improving economic mobility for children and families in the United States.” Ballmer’s wealth is derived from Microsoft. He is also the owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers.
8. Waycrosse
Assets under management at Waycrosse, the family office for the Cargill-MacMillan families of Minnesota, was recently pegged at $65.2 billion by the Sovereign Wealth Institute. Some sources date the founding of the Wayzata, Minn.-based office to 1991.
The interrelated Cargill and MacMillan families own more than 90 per cent of agrifood giant Cargill. Some financial analysts say the family office also invests in banking, insurance, steel and plumbing interests.
9. Woodbridge Co. Ltd.
The only Canadian office on the list is the Thomson clan’s Woodbridge Co. The website Simple, which analyzes and benchmarks family offices, estimated Woodbridge assets at $57.8 billion in July, although the investment research platforms Fintel and GuruFocus peg them at closer to $70 billion.
Woodbridge is the primary management firm for the family of the late Roy Thomson, who made his fortune in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. Grandchildren of Roy Thomson participate in Woodbridge, along with other heirs. David Thomson, the founder’s oldest grandson, is the chair of the family office, which was founded in 1978.
In September, the office announced the appointment of a new president and CEO: Jay Forbes, an executive with a background in finance, technology and telecommunications. Woodbridge is the controlling shareholder of the global information and media company Thomson Reuters and owns the Globe and Mail newspaper.
10. Fedesa
Founded in 2016 and based in Monaco, Fedesa is the family office of Italian businessman Giovanni Ferrero. Estimates put its assets at about $55 billion.
The Ferrero family began its entrepreneurial drive in 1946 with confectionaries and continues to produce such products as Nutella, Ferrero Roche and Kinder chocolates and Royal Dansk cookies. The company has also branched into agribusiness.
The Canadian Family Offices newsletter comes out on Sundays and Wednesdays. If you are interested in stories about Canadian enterprising families, family offices and the professionals who work with them, but like your content aggregated, you can sign up for our free newsletter here.
Please visit here to see information about our standards of journalistic excellence.