Australia’s secretive family offices in decade-long boom
Australia has witnessed a boom in family offices over the past decade as the country’s long recession-free streak delivered untold wealth to the richest families, new data shows.
A survey of family offices – financial vehicles used to preserve and grow wealth – from KPMG, The Table Club and specialist recruiter Agreus found an overwhelming number had been founded in the last few years.
“I was surprised that 57 per cent were established in the last 10 years,” Robyn Langsford, KPMG’s global head of family business, said of the survey – conducted in the first three months of the year – of more than 60 of the estimated 2000 family offices in Australia. “That’s quite a high rate of growth and higher than I anticipated.”
Family offices are increasingly sophisticated, with 6 per cent of those surveyed having more than $1 billion in assets under management and 60 per cent having an investment committee. Australia has a number of larger family offices such as the Baillieu and Myer families’ joint firm Mutual Trust, the Victor Smorgon Group, representing the investments stemming from the late industrialist’s wealth, and the Lowy Family Group where David Lowy is the principal.
“There’s been a significant increase in wealth from a variety of sectors, even if you look at rural sector and the price of land and cattle, we’ve also seen a lot of people who’ve been flying under the radar with businesses which have [suddenly] had a liquidity event,” said James Burkitt, the founder of family office group The Table Club.
Until COVID-19 hit, Australia experienced the longest period of growth without a recession among developing countries since World War II. Australians are the fourth-richest citizens globally, according to UBS data, and
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