What does the office lose when a key person leaves?
Who decided what and why. Which structure was set up for which reason. What was promised to whom in 2014, and which conversation between the brothers never finished.
Some of that is recorded; some is held only by the people involved. A useful handover needs both the records and the reasoning people can still explain.
Of 333 single family offices surveyed in J.P. Morgan’s 2026 report, 86% had no succession plan for the people who make decisions. Our view — a view, not a finding — is that the hardest part to hand over is why things are the way they are.
What you receive
A map of the decision. What is at stake in rights, money, time and position, not only in the numbers of the transaction.
What needs checking. Which claims need stronger evidence and what information is missing.
The questions to close before the step becomes irreversible — including the ones that belong to your lawyers, your tax advisers or your bank.
A written review you can use with other people. Built to be taken to partners, family members and advisers.
Formats and timing
Review of one decision · two weeks
One specific decision: a transaction you are being drawn into, an offer to sell, a change of ownership structure, a successor’s role.
Strategic decision review · three to five weeks
For decisions such as passing a business and capital between generations, restructuring across jurisdictions, or entering or leaving a partnership. It includes a working session with you and, where it matters, with family or partners — so you see how we work with a family conversation before deciding whether you want an ongoing system.
Both reviews are complete on their own. Fees are fixed and agreed before we start.
Family meetings
A family meeting can be part of a review. Before anything is recorded, we agree its purpose, the participants, tools, recipients and retention period, and each participant gives informed agreement. If someone does not agree, we use a non-recorded format.
The analysis keeps three things apart: what happened — questions raised and dropped, what was stated as fact or as assumption, where numbers came from; what it may mean — patterns such as anchoring on an old figure, marked as readings, not findings; and what only the people there can answer. A transcript shows what was said. It does not show why somebody went quiet.
Participants can flag factual errors. Access is limited to the agreed people. Recordings are not used in public examples or to train shared models.
If the same questions keep coming back
We can set up and maintain a system that keeps what the office knows about its decisions. The components depend on what you already run; which part comes first is agreed at the start. The system prepares, remembers and flags — it does not make decisions on the family’s behalf.
The history of decisions. What was decided, by whom, on what basis — including reasoning that turned out wrong.
Obligations and promises. Commitments across entities, jurisdictions and generations, with the document and the date last checked. What cannot be traced is marked as untraced.
The positions of the people. Who holds what view, what is agreed, what is unresolved — recorded with the people concerned and kept apart from our interpretation.
The unfinished list. Questions opened in past meetings and never closed, in one place.
Before a conversation. What this person has said before on the subject, what was agreed, what was left open.
When something changes outside. Regulation, jurisdictions and the sectors your capital sits in, checked against named sources on an agreed schedule. You see which decision rested on the changed condition.
The annual account to the family. Assembled from what is already held.
Support covers the agreed sources and workflows, updates to the record, review of signals and documentation. Setup and recurring support are quoted separately; additional research and larger changes are priced before work begins.
Checking our own work
A source attached to a statement is where checking starts. We record what the source supports, what remains uncertain and when it was reviewed. Our own research record includes corrections: in August we withdrew an inference drawn from the absence of a public announcement, because the silence fitted several different explanations.
Ownership, access and limits
Your data remains yours. You receive the configuration and documentation, with agreed rights to use and maintain them. Licences and any existing intellectual property are identified before work starts; our access, logging and exit arrangements are documented.
We do not give investment recommendations or tell you whether to buy or sell, and we do not replace your lawyers, tax advisers or investment advisers.
Next step
Send a short email with your name, your role and the decision in a few sentences. The first conversation is thirty minutes, no charge. Contact →