Share |

Family office investments

Transport tycoon’s family office buys into bus business

May 7, 2014

Brian Souter, the entrepreneur behind British transport group Stagecoach, is using his family office to stick with what he knows – by investing in a Finnish coach business.

Brian Souter, the entrepreneur behind British transport group Stagecoach, is using his family office to stick with what he knows – by investing in a Finnish coach business.

Souter Investments, the Scotland-based family office, revealed this week it had taken a majority stake in express intercity service OnniBus.com.

The deal was done via its transport investment arm, Highland Global Transport, which owns a portfolio of road, rail, water and air passenger transport investments in businesses in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.

Michael Dell's FO considers trimming away gardening asset

April 30, 2014

Michael Dell's family office is likely to shed its corporate gardening company this spring in a deal expected to be worth at least $1 billion (€723 million).

Michael Dell's family office is likely to shed its corporate gardening company this spring in a deal expected to be worth at least $1 billion (€723 million).

Dell, the entrepreneur behind the eponymous software giant, bought ValleyCrest in 2007 for an undisclosed sum via his family office, MSD Capital.

Bankrolling a blockbuster

April 29, 2014

Independent films have a reputation as a high-risk yet glamorous investment, but there are opportunities for investors across the risk appetite spectrum. Campden takes a look at how family offices are investing.

The good money

January 20, 2014

Socially responsible investing has got the backing of famous names, has seen a huge rise in assets under management and is focused on the future, but are family offices actually interested? CampdenFB takes a look

Private wealth shaping real estate markets

January 17, 2014

Family offices are filling the vacuum left by corporate bankers in the world’s real estate markets, as new research reveals the asset class accounts for approximately a fifth of the invested wealth of all ultra high net worth individuals.

Sackler family office invests in alternative mutual fund

January 14, 2014

New York-based family office Summer Road has put $100 million (€73.1 million) into an alternative mutual fund, following a trend of ultra high net worth families shifting away from traditional hedge funds.

According to media reports, Summer Road, headed by David Sackler, the grandson of Raymond Sackler who bought Purdue Pharma in 1952, has provided the seed funding for the Balter Long/Short Equity Fund.

Clubbing together

September 11, 2013

Family offices talk a lot about club deals, but are they really happening, or just figments of fund managers’ imaginations? Campden reports.

Club deals are all the rage. At least in theory. Many families are sick of paying fees to asset managers who stick their money in a black box, wave a magic wand over it and then, well, find that the money has vanished in a puff of smoke. People with burned fingers are, predictably, keen to cut out the middleman and invest directly. The idea of teaming up with other like-minded family offices to make direct private equity-style investments has an evident appeal. But club deals are not happening as fast as you might expect.

Offshore wind

June 18, 2013

As the clamour for more financial transparency intensifies, offshore financial centres are having to adjust. What does this mean for these centres – and what should family offices know about the changes?

There are many lessons to be learned from the Cyprus fiasco, one of which is that offshore banking is a fragile thing on which to rest your economy these days. The general lack of sympathy for Nicosia also suggests that it is not exactly seen as a worthy pursuit.

Distressed appeal

June 13, 2013

Distressed debt sounds like another difficult asset class, with the real money being made by its sellers. But some investors are enthusiastically buying it up.

On the morning of 2 October last year a four-masted, 104-metre long Argentinian naval-training frigate, called the ARA Libertad (pictured, right), sailed into a harbour in Ghana planning to take on supplies. The 300 crew were rather surprised when Ghanaian authorities informed the captain that the ship was being detained in the port on the orders of a court.

Family business owners more likely to invest in tangibles

June 4, 2013

Family business owners are more comfortable investing in tangibles and businesses than other wealthy families, according to new research.

Family business owners are more comfortable investing in tangibles and businesses than other wealthy families, according to new research, allocating three times as much to direct private equity and almost twice as much to real estate as their non-business owning counterparts.

The study, by family office networking centre Family Office Exchange (FOX) and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, compared the investment decisions made in 2012 by business-owning families, and "financial" families – wealthy families without an operating business.