Insights into a family office

Peter Brannighan (RPM Group) and Martin Morris (Centric) explore what a Family Office is looking for from their advisers, and what is needed to meet the needs of this type of client.

There are approximately 2,000 registered Family Offices in Australia — which manage the finances, investments, governance and often the personal affairs of a wealthy individual or family — and while this may not be a segment of the market that the average financial advice practice is targeting, it does create opportunities for advisers to extend into the high-net-worth and intergenerational wealth market.

Martin Morris — Executive Head of Centric — believes there is a major opportunity for advisers to tap into the ‘business exit’ segment of the market — where business founders and entrepreneurs liquidate or transfer their equity stake in a company to achieve financial return or personal retirement.

By Jayson Forrest

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Citing industry research, Martin says 50 per cent of Australian businesses are owned by over 50s and 22 per cent are owner by over 60s. In addition, 48 per cent of Baby Boomers aged between 60 and 78 are expected to exit the workforce over the next 1-5 years.

“That’s quite a compelling situation when you consider that Baby Boomers own approximately 80 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises. It’s a massive segment that provides an opportunity for advisers, where founder-controlled illiquid assets are starting to liquidate. These are investable assets that have been off the radar and many are multi-generational businesses that have never sought advice,” says Martin.

“Intergenerational wealth transfer is a huge issue for this cohort. But it isn’t just about managing portfolios and wealth, it’s also about governance, structure, and educating family members who will inherit this wealth.” 

Joining Martin in a discussion on the topic ‘Insights into a family office from a family office’ at the 2026 IMAP Advice in Action Conference, Peter Brannighan — Chairman of RPM Group and Owner of Corecon — shared his thoughts on family offices from the perspective of Chairman of a practicing family office.

Peter sets the scene of a family office he is involved with:

• A family of Italian heritage, with the patriarch having passed away four years ago.
• The patriarch had run everything in the business, with no financial advice.
• With the passing of the patriarch, the family inherited $300 million, comprising commercial property and a significant amount in cash.

“The patriarch did receive very good tax advice from an estate planner and superannuation lawyer, however, he had no investment advice. When I inherited this family office as a client about one year ago, it was stagnant. From an investment perspective, there was no real investment activity taking place, and we had almost $100 million in deposit accounts,” says Peter.

“And while the family office was still making more money than it was spending, it was making considerably less than it could.”

Peter’s first job when taking over this family office was to properly understand the family’s needs and objectives, which were not the same for all family members. In the first instance, Peter was dealing with the matriarch and the four siblings, while the next generation (the grandchildren) had been actively excluded from any engagement with the family office.

“To me, that was madness,” says Peter. “If something catastrophic happens and I’m suddenly dealing with six grandchildren, who don’t know who I am and have been excluded from the family office, then that becomes a very difficult situation for me to manage. So, there was a need to better understand my client’s needs and objectives, and create a more inclusive environment for all family members.”

Peter was able to achieve that inclusivity by ensuring that three of the siblings now sit on the board, while other family members attend as observers to board meetings. He also provides the family with access to education sessions and regular insights into the business. These are all initiatives that Peter says the family never had access to before.

“I cannot stress enough, how much education is required for members of a family office,” says Peter. “That’s because you’re not dealing with one person, instead, you’re dealing with a number of family members. Each person is different. They have different life experiences, a different understanding of wealth management, and they have different wants and needs.”

Interestingly, the question — ‘What do you want?’ — in relation to members of the family office, had never been asked of the family, and reflects the controlling nature of the patriarch who was previously running this structure. And while Peter acknowledges the importance for advisers to not only understand the governance framework of the family office and the needs of their clients, he also says it’s important to recognise that often they are dealing with members of the family who are not sophisticated about investing.

One of Peter’s biggest challenges working with the children of this family office, who had previously been excluded from their parents’ wealth, was helping them to overcome their fear and anxiety about investing. He says the children had a particularly deep fear of being “ripped off” in relation to their wealth.

“How you deal with overcoming that fear and anxiety is by spending a long time getting to know all the family members, and allowing them to know you. It’s essential to ensure they are included and engaged in their own wealth management journey, and in a way that is simple for them to understand. They have to be part of the process, if not, then you don’t get buy-in, which can cause resentment and obstacles forming,” says Peter.

“The more engagement your clients and the next generations have, then the better outcomes you’ll be able to achieve.”

Interestingly, Peter says the children viewed themselves as the custodians of their parents’ wealth, with a focus on handing it down to the next generations (the grandchildren and great grandchildren). The patriarch did have the foresight to put in place a constitution, which meant his children could not break up the family wealth, but his grandchildren could. However, Peter says the family is in the process of changing that, because the matriarch wants to see greater longevity in the family wealth.

For Peter, engaging with the family and their wealth meant re-examining the strategic drivers as set by the patriarch. This included setting new outcomes for the family, which meant retaining the corpus of funds, increasing the returns, and reinvesting to grow the family’s wealth.

“The first order of business was to sell off a number of C-grade commercial properties that the patriarch had bought. We then reinvested the proceeds by purchasing A-grade properties. We did this first because buying and selling property takes longer to execute,” says Peter.

The second order of business was dealing with the cash. Peter talked to the family about working with private wealth advisers, which involved taking money out of cash deposits, in order to get a better return on investment. He emphasises the importance of getting the “right advice” as part of any governance framework for a family office.

This governance framework also extended to appointing investment professionals to manage the client’s portfolio and build the family’s wealth. He undertook an extensive process in choosing the services of a Chief Investment Officer (CIO) to manage the investment portfolio.

According to Peter, this process of selection centred on three key criteria:

1. Strong investment advice;

2. Access to opportunities not readily available to other investors; and

3. Investment education for the family.

“I created a brief and sent that out to a range of wealth professionals. I then used a scoring guide to mark off their responses and compare against. I ended up with six CIOs on the short-list, and eventually decided to go with three,” says Peter.

The three CIOs included: a well-established and long-term wealth manager; a newer manager that was able to provide the client with significantly more services and greater access to overseas opportunities; and a boutique manager.

“Each of these managers had an investment committee and strong research capabilities,” says Peter. “They all came with different strengths and qualities, which were complementary to each other.”

According to Peter, all three CIOs have the same amount of funds to invest. They are required to maximise the long-term returns of their respective portfolios. Each manager regularly reports on their portfolios, which is shared with the board. “We want to build the corpus of funds over time, which includes reinvestment. So, we’re not looking for short-term ‘sugar hits’,” says Peter.

For any advice business looking to service the family office sector, Peter’s advice is to have substance and a long-term view. “It’s also important to understand you need to over-invest in the relationship to start with. That’s because whatever you receive in terms of the money you manage and the fees you generate, I guarantee that the amount of attention the client will ask for and expect to receive, will exceed those fees.”

Martin agrees that governance, education, and structure are all key factors when working with family offices and intergenerational wealth transfer, and are absolutely essential for any advisers wanting to offer their services to this segment of the market.

“This means your website, your language, and your engagement model needs to start at the right point. While everybody can offer investments at a portfolio level, not everybody can offer the type of substance Peter is talking about.” 

Peter Brannighan is Chairman of RPM Group and Owner of Corecon.

He spoke on the topic ‘Insights into a family office from a family office’ at the 2026 IMAP Advice in Action Conference.

The session was moderated by Martin Morris — Executive Head of Centric.