This is where 206 Italian family offices are located

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At the end of 2021, there were 206 family offices operating in Italy. This news comes in the latest update of the Family Office Observatory, a collaboration between the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, the Innovation and Strategy Group, the Free University of Bolzano, the Center for Family Business Management with IMD and Lancaster University. The Observatory aims to monitor the development of this phenomenon, as well as the characteristics, strategies and developments of these organizations that are increasingly linked to Italian entrepreneurial families.

Phenomenon

Family offices, meaning a new type of intermediary for individual families with significant assets, represent a rapidly growing phenomenon in Italy and around the world. Their activities, traditionally dedicated to the management and protection of family assets, seem to be undergoing a strong transformation, just as the characteristics and objectives of entrepreneurial families are changing. The latest survey of the Family Office Observatory, a project born in 2020, a collaboration between the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, the Innovation and Strategy Group, the Free University of Bolzano, the Center for Family Business Management, the IMD Lausanne and Lancaster University, in addition to monitoring the presence of 206 family offices and entrepreneurial families in Italy, aims to provide a rigorous empirical basis for understanding the phenomenon in Italy, analyzing strategies, organizations, activities and the impact on the country’s economy.

Location

Of the 206 family offices detected, 195 are located in Italy, especially in Lombardy, with 59% concentrated in this region, while the registered offices of the remaining 11 family offices are in Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Principality of Monaco. In 2021, 4 family offices dropped out of the census because they are no longer active, while 34 were added, in particular 31 single-family offices and 3 multi-family offices. The traditional distinction between single-family offices and multi-family offices is whether they operate for a single family or for multiple families.

Typology

Multi-family offices are often the natural evolution of single families: once they have gained some experience, these organizations expand and offer their services on the market. The Observatory notes that in the last decade (2011-2020) there has been a strong growth in the number of 94 single-family offices, 92 professional multi-family offices and 20 organizations of bank origin, while there has been a significant increase in the number of professional multi-family offices, which were mainly established in the last decade (2001-2010).

Activity

The assets of Italian entrepreneurial families are changing: “new money” family offices created after liquidity events are becoming increasingly important, along with family offices still engaged in industrial activities. 52.3% of Italian single family offices mention “financial services activities (excluding insurance and pension funds)”. Of these, 84.4% are in “holding company activities”. 31.4% of Italian single family offices are involved in “management consulting activities”, of which 81.5% are involved in “activities of holding companies engaged in management activities (operational holdings)”.