In Thai family businesses, wealth typically does not begin with stock portfolios or funds but starts from the businesses that families build themselves. Companies have financial statements, accounting departments, and know their assets. However, when asked about the family, many households cannot provide a consolidated list of family assets—such as who owns a particular piece of land, through whom company shares are held, which funds belong to the company or the family, and which children have already received what assets.
In many family businesses, this information is not systematized but resides in the memory of a single individual. As long as that person remains, everything functions. Problems arise when the family expands but the system does not. From three siblings raised in one household, the family grows to a dozen cousins living separately, working different jobs, with varying risk tolerance and different interpretations of "fairness." Family questions then extend beyond who will inherit the business to who has decision-making rights over what, and if the person with all the knowledge is gone tomorrow, who will have the full information?
With over 10 years of experience as a family business consultant working with more than 50 family businesses, I, Theerapap Anyanupap, want to correct a misconception: the belief that "Family Office is only for billionaires." In truth, many Thai family businesses already have Family Offices without calling them that; they just haven't formalized them. This is where the 'Family Office' concept becomes meaningful to family wealth.
A Family Office is an organization or team established to systematically manage a family's wealth and financial matters—from investments, accounting and reporting, taxes, legal issues, shareholding structures, inheritance planning, to family governance and preparing the next generation. It is not merely a "portfolio management team for the wealthy."
This is not unique to Thailand. Deloitte Private estimates that in 2024, there are about 8,030 Single Family Offices worldwide managing approximately $3.1 trillion in assets. By 2030, this number is expected to grow to about 10,720 offices managing around $5.4 trillion, with the Asia-Pacific region projected to grow faster than North America.
Family Offices usually begin when families invest profits from their core businesses into outside ventures (Wealth Expansion as discussed in the article "6 Secret Formulas of Family Business") or when shares or businesses are sold, making off-business assets too complex for company teams to handle.
The main role of a Family Office is to separate what traditional family businesses often combine: separating ownership from management, and separating business funds from family funds. Just as companies know their cash holdings, families should know their total wealth, where it is, who owns it, and for what purpose.
A Family Office does not have to start by establishing a new company with a full investment team. Families can begin by organizing what they already have and gradually increase complexity. I classify Family Offices into three levels based on asset complexity, number of family members, and wealth value, plus one alternative that can substitute for level three.
Model 1: Embedded Family Office
Many Thai family businesses operate at this level without calling it a Family Office. There is no separate company—just a CFO, accounting department, executive secretary, or a trusted long-term employee handling family matters alongside company duties, such as expenses, family welfare, or safekeeping important documents.
The advantage is almost no extra cost, and owners work with trusted people. However, the downside is the same reason: when company employees manage personal matters of shareholders, the boundary between company and family blurs, some personal expenses go through the company, and vital information rests with only one or two employees. These problems become apparent when companies seek investors, prepare for stock market entry, or when the next generation asks, "What assets does our family have?" but no documents answer this.
For families whose off-business assets are still limited, this model is acceptable. What needs to start is creating a family asset inventory, separating business and family accounts, and reducing reliance on a single person's memory.
Model 2: Virtual Family Office
Families engage multiple external experts, such as private banks for investments, law firms for wills and shareholding structures, tax advisors, auditors, and insurance companies. What is often missing is not experts but someone who consolidates information from all these specialists. A functioning Virtual Family Office requires at least one coordinator acting on behalf of the family, who has access to all information and ensures all service providers work from the same data. Practically, this role often falls to a family business consultant or Family CFO.
The advantage is access to diverse expertise without bearing the fixed costs of a full-time team. The caution is that if banks or securities firms recommend investments, they may have their own products or returns in mind. From what I've seen, families with wealth in the hundreds of millions of baht can consider this model without waiting to reach a billion-baht level.
Model 3: Single Family Office
This is a formal Family Office with a separate organization from the business, a full-time team dedicated to one family. The minimal structure includes a head of office or Family CEO/CFO, investment officers, accounting controllers, and operations staff, supplemented by external advisors.
Unlike the Virtual Family Office, this team is salaried by the family and acts as representatives of the owners, not selling products. At sufficient scale, a Single Family Office can set investment policies, establish an investment committee, compile a complete asset list across all accounts, and manage liquidity and risk at the family level.
Therefore, setting up a Single Family Office should not start with "Are we rich enough?" but rather "Does our family need a central unit managing everyone's assets?" From my observations, wealth starting at 1 billion baht is a level where a Single Family Office justifies its costs.
Model 3+1: Multi-Family Office
A Multi-Family Office is when multiple families share the same team and system, splitting costs. This model is not necessarily a step above the Single Family Office but an alternative. The advantage is access to a highly experienced team and exposure to inheritance governance and investment issues across several families.
The caution is that the team does not work exclusively for one family. Families should ask not only "How much are the fees?" but also "Who else is paying them?"
Regardless of the level, a Family Office works when the family agrees on rules about who has decision rights on investments, risk tolerance, who can access asset information, and what the purpose of each family asset is. These are defined in the "Family Charter." Without such rules, any level of Family Office becomes just a team taking orders from a single individual as before.
A Family Office transforms family wealth management from relying on people to relying on structures, from individuals to systems, from necessity and memory to explicit, known processes. Families do not have to start at the highest level but must know where they currently stand.
"A family business can start with just one talented person, but sustaining wealth across generations requires a system that does not depend on a single individual."
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