Category: Family CFO
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Planned Giving at Family Offices
Planned giving conversations are different when you’re engaging with a family office. For fundraisers, especially those focused on legacy giving, the opportunity is significant. But so is the need to understand how these families think, operate, and make decisions. At this level, philanthropy is often professionalized. Family offices often bring a deliberate, structured, and strategic
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Navigating A Family Office: Service Provider’s Perspective
Working with a family office can feel very different from dealing directly with an individual investor or donor. For investment managers, advisors, fund sponsors, and even fundraisers at charities, the experience is often more structured, less personal in the traditional sense, and far more process-driven. Understanding what’s happening behind the scenes, particularly regarding governance, stakeholder
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How We Help Founders with Newfound Liquidity
Many entrepreneurs spend decades building a business or a real estate portfolio. Their expertise is deep, practical, and hard-earned. But when the day finally comes to sell, whether it’s a company, a commercial property, or an entire real estate portfolio, something changes overnight. Instead of operational decisions, you now become the steward of a large
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When Successful Investors Stop Doing Their Own Bookkeeping
Many successful investors spend decades building businesses, managing investments, and handling the administrative details of their financial life themselves. In the early years, that approach makes perfect sense. The systems are simple, the number of accounts is manageable, and doing things personally is usually the most efficient. But at a certain stage of life, often
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Does Wealth Management Get Better with Age?
Experience carries enormous weight in the world of wealth management. Clients often assume that someone who has worked with money for forty or fifty years must naturally be better at it. After all, long careers bring experience, pattern recognition, and a deeper understanding of markets and people. But is wealth management something that improves indefinitely
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Losing Control of Wealth
We often assume that wealth automatically brings control. If someone has accumulated meaningful assets such as investment portfolios, holding companies, trusts, or even a family foundation, it seems logical that they’re firmly in charge of their financial life. Surprisingly in practice, the opposite often happens. As wealth structures become more complex and professionalized, decision-making can
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How I Resist My Investing Urges
Recognizing our behavioural biases is one of the most powerful ways investors can improve their long-term results. However, this is often easier said than done. Each investor is a different person, a real human being with personal emotions. Some struggle with fear during market downturns, others with overconfidence during bull markets. Even experienced investors (and
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The Truth about Financial Advisor Incentives
Most families assume that financial advice is embedded in the services they receive. They see reporting, transactions, implementation, and assume that judgment is included in the fee. The industry’s compensation structure often tells a different story. And even for firms like ours, who deliberately avoid charging a percentage of assets, the incentives are more complex
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Paper Money vs Real Wealth
High income can be deceptive. It creates the appearance of abundance, stability, even financial success. But income alone is not wealth, and confusing the two can quietly undermine families for decades. And, create blind spots for the next generation, which may put their own financial future at risk. High Income Is Not the Same as
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Home Bias and Global Investing: Global vs. International Equities Explained
When investors talk about diversification, the terms global equities and international equities are often used carelessly. They are not the same thing. For Canadian and U.S. investors, understanding the distinction can materially improve clarity, discipline, and long-term results. What is the difference between global equities and international equities? And, why does it matter? Global Equities