I've seen the portfolio's of dozens of family offices (I worked at a portfolio analytics company so I had free reign to snoop around), and none of the offices seemed competent. The returns were terrible and the portfolio construction laughable.
Instead of striving for out performance, the funds just catered to the whims and idiosyncrasies of the family. Also, many of these funds were too small to make sense, AUMs from like 150MM-500MM. They would have be much better off just investing in a hedge fund, but the family's ego didn't allow them. I think the point was to show off more than anything else.
One of the exceptions was Sergey Brin's family office, which managed a shit-ton of money and had some good people who actually knew something about portfolio construction.
Instead of striving for out performance, the funds just catered to the whims and idiosyncrasies of the family. Also, many of these funds were too small to make sense, AUMs from like 150MM-500MM. They would have be much better off just investing in a hedge fund, but the family's ego didn't allow them. I think the point was to show off more than anything else.
One of the exceptions was Sergey Brin's family office, which managed a shit-ton of money and had some good people who actually knew something about portfolio construction.