Family offices pride themselves on growing in parallel with the families they service, and Sandaire Family Office still works with its founding family. Patrick Brusnahan speaks to Charlotte Filsell, head of client relationship management, about the firm and how it has changed alongside its clients
Patrick Brusnahan (PB): Where do you see Sandaire’s place in the UK market at the moment?
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Charlotte Filsell (CF): We’re a family office in the multifamily office space, and we’re quite unique in having a founding family. It means that we are the truest form of a family office.
PB: Would you say that it is your USP, and that level of tradition helps you stand out?
CF: I think so, yes. The other thing that sets us apart from some of the more traditional wealth managers is that we often use a use a phrase, ‘more than wealth’. Because we have experience with the founding family, and obviously the other families we work with, we do understand the complexities and challenges of wealth. The fact is there are many emotional angles to wealth, not just the finances, and we provide help with that as well as professional expertise and obviously investment management guidance. We can provide personal support to families as well.
PB: How often does that come into play? Is it in every interaction?
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By GlobalDataCF: It’s constant. What’s important is that we spend a lot of time getting to know our families really, really well. Part of the reason I chose to move into the family office world is because I wanted to truly get to know my clients, understand their needs and priorities, and truly work with them in a completely aligned and unconflicted way. Every interaction I have with the families that we work with gives me a greater understanding, not just of their finances, but of them as people, what drives them, what their objectives and needs are. That’s constantly evolving, it never stops.
PB: What are wealthy families interested in at the moment?
CF: We are seeing increasing interest in private markets; that’s driven by a couple of things. We’ve had a very long run in public markets and the expectation is return in those markets might moderate. It’s also driven by the next generations being much more involved in investments and wanting to target their investments to social impacts and positive good. Private equities and some private companies have certain ways to do that. What we’ve done in response to that is actually increase the resources we have to private equity to build on that, so we can cater to that demand that we’re seeing. More broadly, environmental, social and government (ESG) investing is definitely a theme that we are in dialogue with many of our families about.
PB: When did you start noticing impact investing picking up interest?
CF: I would say there’s been a steady increase in dialogue for the last two years or 18 months, but it’s definitely through 2019. There have been many more specific and targeted conversations around how to actually implement some of those themes. What’s important, I guess, is to notice that in different families, the E, the S or the G might be more important, or it might be that all of those are equally important. It comes back to us knowing our clients and understanding what they are actually trying to achieve and also making sure that they’re well educated. There’s lots of jargon. There’s still lots of inconsistency in the way people are going about ESG. We’re here to support and help navigate through that, so they can make informed decisions.
PB: Is it younger members of the family pushing ESG?
CF: Yes, it’s probably fair to say younger members of the family are leading the conversation. I think once that conversation has started, all the family are also involved and on board.
PB: What is Sandaire aiming for over the next five years?
CF: Our plan is to continue to evolve with our families. That’s really the purpose behind us. And also really reinforcing our family office services offering. As our families grow, and evolve and spread around the world, and perhaps sell their businesses and have various family events, their lives become more complex. There’s all sorts of associated administration around that. There’s lots of uncharted territory that we need to support the family through, they’ll need lots of professional expertise. What we aim to do is help each family have an integrated plan for their wealth and support them to execute on that plan and spend time focusing on the priorities at each stage of the journey.
