Family offices are private investment management firms established by ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families. They’re generally established by families with at least $50mn in investable assets. It can be a single-family office designated for one family or a multi-family office managing the wealth of two or more families.

Like with everything, family offices have different classes. Most family offices manage between $100mn and $1bn, and relatively few are in the big leagues managing over $10bn. We want to examine those in the big leagues, the top 20 family offices worldwide. They include:

1. Walton Enterprises LLC – $225bn of assets under management (AUM).
2. Cascade Investment – $170bn AUM.
3. Bezos Expeditions – $108bn AUM.
4. Mousse Partners – $89bn AUM.
5. Ballmer Group – $85bn AUM.
6. Waycrosse – $65bn AUM.
7. Fedesa – $55bn AUM.
8. The Woodbridge Company – $54bn AUM.
9. Pontegadea Inversiones – $54bn AUM.
10. Dubai Holding – $35bn AUM.
11. MSD Capital – $31bn AUM.
12. Athos KG – $31bn AUM.
13. Bayshore Global Management – $30bn AUM.
14. Soros Family Office – $30bn AUM.
15. Emerson Collective – $26bn AUM.
16. The Grosvenor Estate – $25bn AUM.
17. KIRKBI A/S – $24bn AUM.
18. Euclidean Capital – $22bn AUM.
19. Hartono Family Office – $21bn.
20. Crosby Advisors – $17bn.

Let’s dive deeper into the aforementioned family offices.

• Walton Enterprises LLC: A single-family office managing the fortune of the Walton Family, the biggest shareholders of retail giant Walmart (NYSE: WMT). Sam Walton founded Walmart in 1962 and handed over ownership to the current generation before he passed away in 1992.

• Cascade Investment: A single-family office managing the fortune of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates. Gates left his full-time role at Microsoft in 2008 and has since focused on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, America’s largest private foundation by endowment value.

• Bezos Expeditions: A family office managing the fortune of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s chief executive in 2021 but remains partly active as board Chairman.

• Mousse Partners – An investment firm managing the fortune of Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, the French brothers who own luxury fashion house Chanel. The brothers inherited the company from their father, Pierre Wertheimer, who founded it alongside the famous French fashion designer Coco Chanel.

• Ballmer Group – An investment firm managing the assets of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s former chief executive and largest individual shareholder. Ballmer was Gates’s classmate at Harvard University, and Gates hired Ballmer as the 30th employee at a then-small software company called Microsoft. Ballmer ascended to the chief executive position and ran Microsoft from 2000 to 2014.

• Waycrosse: Manages the wealth of the Cargill family, owners of food conglomerate Cargill Inc, which is America’s largest private company by revenue.

• Fedesa: Manages the fortune of the Ferreros, the Italian family that owns Ferrero SpA, the world’s second-biggest chocolate manufacturer by sales.

• The Woodbridge Company: A Canadian family office managing the assets of the Thomson family, owners of multimedia news giant Thomson Reuters.

• Pontegadea Inversiones: Manages the real estate assets of Spanish business mogul Amancio Ortega. Ortega founded the clothing chain Zara and holds a 60% stake in the publicly traded company. He receives nearly 2 billion euros in annual dividends from Zara, most of which he invests in global real estate via Pontegadea.

• Dubai Holding: A holding company for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Of course, Dubai Holding owns a lot of prime real estate in Dubai.

• MSD Capital: A family office originally created to manage the assets of Michael Dell, founder of Dell Technologies. Today, it manages Michael Dell’s assets alongside those of other wealthy families.

• Athos KG: The holding company of German pharmaceutical billionaires Thomas and Andreas Strüngmann. Athos KG’s investments are primarily in the healthcare sector.

• Bayshore Global Management: An investment firm managing the assets of Sergey Brin, co-founder of technology giant Google.

• Soros Family Office: Manages the fortune of U.S. hedge fund tycoon George Soros.

• Emerson Collective: The family office managing the assets of Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of the late Apple Inc co-founder Steve Jobs.

• The Grosvenor Estate: Manages the fortune of Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster, a British Aristocrat and businessman. The fortune traces back to Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, who controlled vast swathes of land in London. Grosvenor’s assets are concentrated in real estate assets in the U.K. and abroad.

• KIRKBI A/S: Manages the assets of the Kristiansens, the Danish family that owns famous toy manufacturer Lego Group.

• Euclidean Capital – The family office of U.S. hedge fund tycoon James Simons. His hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies (RenTec), is one of the best-performing funds globally and is famous for its secrecy. The Man Who Solved the Market is a book that gives readers a peek into RenTec’s mysterious operations.

• Hartono Family Office: The family office of Indonesian tobacco billionaires Michael and Robert Hartono.

• Crosby Advisors: Manages the wealth of the Johnson family, the American family that controls financial services giant Fidelity Investments.

From the above descriptions, you can observe that 4 of the top 5 and half of the top 20 family offices come from the U.S. The rest are based in Europe and North America, and just one is based in Asia.

*Figures are sourced from 13F filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute.

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