Approach
We design from the life the family wants.
UMFO works the way an architect works on a single building: every project is one of a kind, the structure has to outlast its author, and the family builds it with us, not through us. The method has five levels. The three axes below are what we hold the picture on.
Method
Family Life Configuration: five levels
The life the family wants
One sheet, twenty years ahead: the future first, then its price in money, time and attention.
Family with UMFO
Configuration
Where the family lives, where the capital sits, where decisions are made, who takes part.
UMFO
Access
What has to stay reachable under any scenario: countries, money, assets, institutions, information inside the family.
UMFO
Mechanisms
Statuses, structures, accounts, documents, chosen to fit the configuration, not the other way round.
UMFO selects, providers execute
Execution
Routine, paperwork, day-to-day.
The family’s people and registry providers
Families come to us with a request for a mechanism: a residence permit, an account, a transfer to a son. The standard adviser answers the mechanism. We move the question one level up first, and only then choose the mechanism. Every decision we make can be explained to the bank, the tax office and the family’s adult children.
The three axes build on the classic three-circle model of the family business by Renato Tagiuri and John Davis: family, ownership and business.
Axis I
Six forms of capital
The canonical UMFO frame. It holds one picture instead of six separate disciplines.
Each form of capital runs on its own cycle and carries its own risks. The family office’s job is to hold them in one picture over a horizon no single adviser works on.
Axis II
Working across jurisdictions
Families with capital almost always hold assets and people across several countries. Each one runs on its own law, its own tax logic, its own risks.
Each country has its own specialists: a corporate lawyer, a tax adviser, a private banker, an accountant. Each one sees a part. None of them holds the whole picture.
Our job is to build the frame in which these advisers work together rather than in parallel. We do not replace any of them. We hold the axis on which their advice aligns.
Axis III
Preparing for the generational transition
The handover of capital and roles to the next generation. Families are going through this for the first time in their history. The capital of these families is young: the founders are still in full strength, and they already see the limits of what they can manage by hand.
Preparing for the transition does not come down to a will, and it does not come down to restructuring assets. It is the work of family governance, of educating the next generation, of setting the rules of entry into the business, of clarifying roles and expectations. It cannot be compressed into a six-month engagement.
So we treat the transition as an episode in a long body of work. If the family has spent years in the same frame of capital, the handover becomes the continuation of that work, not the point at which the structure is assembled in a rush.
How we work
The work with a family takes four sequential forms. The pace is set by the family.
Introductory conversation
Thirty minutes with one of the partners. We look at whether your task and our expertise are a fit. If we are not the right practice for you, we say so and, where we can, point you to someone who is.
Diagnostic
Six weeks of structured work with the family across eleven areas. The output is a package of documents: a framing note, a first version of the investment policy, a stress protocol, and a list of priorities for a three-to-five year horizon. The documents stay with the family whether or not we continue together.
Plan for the horizon
After the Diagnostic, the family and UMFO build a plan for the next three to five years. What is open, in what order it is taken, what depends on events in the family or the business. The plan is reviewed once a year.
Ongoing engagement
The family office is led personally by a UMFO partner. The intensity of the work shifts with the family’s phase: at times an active governance package, at times work with the next generation, at times a quiet retainer with no active projects. An annual review with the family once a year.
What we do not do
Honest limits are part of the methodology.
We do not manage portfolios
UMFO holds no asset-manager licence and makes no decisions about specific instruments.
The family pays us
UMFO is paid by the family. When we invite a family into investments we take part in ourselves, or recommend a manager, the family pays UMFO no commission on it.
We do not advise on specific investments
We hold the frame in which those decisions are made and work with your advisers.
No Russian-linked clients or assets
No clients or assets connected to Russian jurisdiction or sanctioned by the EU, the US, or the UK.
No concierge service
Schools, housing, permits, appointments and paperwork are handled by the family’s own people and by providers from our registry.
No workarounds
If a decision only works while the bank, the tax office or the adult children don’t know the details, we don’t build it.