As a child, Richard Wilson was already attending his father’s business meetings. By the time he was in High School, Richard was an entrepreneur and by the age of 21, he was earning 6 figures. From risk consulting to raising capital, Richard ventured himself into the world of top family offices with the goal of providing trends in structuring deals and opportunities for wealthy family offices to connect with each other, share insights, and learn from each other’s ups and downs. Richard Wilson is the Founder and CEO of The Family Office Club—the #1 largest association of over 2000 top family offices and registered ultra-wealthy families. He also represents private investors with an average net worth of $22 million. Richard is also a best-selling author of an important book in the field of family wealth titled “How To Start A Family Office”. If you are working for a top family office or are principal in one, this episode is a “must-listen-to”!
Show Notes:
01:29 – Richard shares how he started getting into ‘family offices’
- Richard has been an entrepreneur all his life. He started 5 businesses before going out of high-school.
- He grew up reading Inc magazine and loved to join his father’s business meetings.
- When he got into risk consulting making 6 figures at the age of 61, he realized that he can’t do it for the rest of his life and decided to do another career change.
- Richard stumbled upon the term ‘family office’ on his new career and realized that he might as well only talk to people with the most capital.
- He then realized that there is no guide on how to talk and reach out to those people and eventually started a website where he shared his insights meeting family offices and parlayed into different ventures throughout the years.
03:58 – How Richard overcame the challenges working with high-net-worth clients
- Richard noticed that one way of adding value to his clients is by letting them know the trends, corporate structures, etc.
- He started hosting conferences called ‘Family Office Club’ and positioned themselves as the leader in the industry
- They created a LinkedIn group with 100k members
05:23 – A specific investment strategy that sets private investors apart from public institutional funds
- Family office can play strong offence in the areas where they create their wealth
- The smartest people he knows do this:
- They look at how they created their wealth,
- What skillset, distribution, expertise got them there
- They choose industries like real estate, manufacturing.
- They will diversify greatly but 30-40% of their net worth are in offence in an industry where they know they have an edge.
- The rest of the portfolio acts as a defense against market forces
08:40 – Are the family offices still invested in equities or has the trend changed?
- Family offices tend to move towards more real estate when stock market prices are high
- They try to build a platform company where that dominates a small niche
09:45 – How can a venture capitalist build relationships with an ultra-wealthy family
- Find angles where you can provide value first
- So many people mess up by attending conferences and just pitch themselves
14:36 – Million-dollar mistakes that ultra-families make
- A lot of them will start investing in everything without any focus
- They think that they are diversifying by investing in startups that are very high-risk
- They trust people who have immediate access around them vs people who work in the family offices.
17:02 – Is social responsibility a big factor in the private investors?
- Many families don’t focus on it currently, but it will grow over time
- The younger generation of investors are into it but it’s a delicate balance
19:55 – Did fintech changed the way investors are investing?
- In 2021, it turned a lot of family offices in to crypto and blockchain
- A lot of families put a certain percentage into crypto just to have a position in case it grows
21:42 – How covid changed the investment industry
- Lots of meetings via Zoom, almost to a fault
- People are more comfortable investing meeting face-to-face
- There is an urgency to get capital to work because of inflation
22:55 – Richard’s upcoming ‘Family Office Super summit’
- Their biggest event of the year where there are 500 professionals on venue
- There are 2 billionaires on stage,4 heads of publicly traded companies, Sharks from Shark Tank, etc.
Connect with Richard
Connect with Atara Twersky!
About The Author
As a securities class action attorney, my goal is to assist you in maximizing claim recoveries related to your investment portfolio, including direct claims, class action claims, class action settlement claims, derivative claims, tax recovery claims, and where appropriate to pursue whistleblower claims and more that help to protect the integrity of the securities markets. My podcast provides the legal and investment community to which my private investor, public fund, and union fund clients belong, with up-to date- information relevant to their investment portfolios. I want to assure my clients that while we may not have seen one another in person these past months, I have been working diligently on your behalf to continue to provide our practice leading services while maintaining my high level of personal attention that I believe is essential to an authentic and long lasting relationship with my clients.
For more information on ways to join cases and to increase your investment portfolio recoveries read my blogs and listen to my Pensions and Investments podcast. Providing information and creative ways to ensure my clients recover all monies due to them in the simplest ways is my overarching goal.
Atara Twersky, is of counsel at AF&T. Atara is also the bestselling author of the children’s book series, Curlee Girlee, inspired by her own young curly haired daughter and written for all curly girls in an effort to ensure they love themselves and their hair exactly as it is, understanding that their hair is part of a greater legacy they share with those who came before them. You can find out more about Atara here. Listen to other podcast episodes Pensions and Investments podcast with Atara Twersky here or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!