Partners
Family offices are not a single category. A single-family office managing a recently realised business fortune has almost nothing in common with a fourth-generation multi-family office whose principal concern is preserving purchasing power and family cohesion. The only safe generalisation is that the constraints are specific and the published playbooks rarely fit.
Three ways we work with families
The first is straightforward: the family invests alongside us in the Leanta portfolio, gaining access to managers and terms that would be difficult to reach with a smaller individual ticket. This suits families who have concluded that building an internal manager-selection function is not a good use of their resources.
The second is co-investment. Where we identify a strategy with capacity beyond our own allocation, we bring it to families who want direct exposure to a specific manager rather than a blended portfolio. The family makes its own decision and holds the position directly.
The third runs in the other direction. A number of family offices run internal strategies — property, private credit, operating-company adjacent investments, specialist trading books — that are genuinely differentiated. Where those strategies can accept external capital, we are an interested allocator.
What families typically need that institutions do not
Tax and domicile complexity is usually the first constraint, and it is often the binding one. Structures that work for a UK pension fund can be inefficient or unworkable for a family with members resident in several jurisdictions. We involve the family's own advisers early rather than presenting a structure and discovering the problem later.
Governance is the second. Decisions may require the agreement of a council, a board or several generations with different risk tolerances. That process takes time, and an allocator who pushes against it damages the relationship. We pace conversations accordingly and provide material written for the people who are not in the room.
The third is the definition of risk itself. For many families, permanent loss of capital and loss of privacy matter far more than volatility or tracking error. A portfolio optimised for a Sharpe ratio may be entirely wrong for a family whose actual objective is that the capital survives intact for a grandchild.
Confidentiality
We do not disclose the identities of our investors, use client names in marketing, or discuss one relationship with another. Where a family requires additional protection we are comfortable with bespoke confidentiality arrangements, nominee structures agreed with their advisers, and restricted circulation of reporting.
Reporting that is actually read
Institutional reporting packs are frequently unreadable by the people who own the money. We provide the full detail for the family's investment staff and a separate, shorter document for principals and next-generation family members that explains what happened in plain language. Several of our relationships began with that being the deciding factor.
Starting the conversation
An initial discussion costs nothing and commits no one. If the fit is not there — and frequently it is not — we will say so directly rather than extending a process that wastes your governance calendar.