Glossario dei family office
151 termini spiegati in modo semplice — da SFO e AUM a dynasty trust e co-investimenti. Ogni termine principale ha la sua pagina.
A
An accredited investor is a person or entity that meets specific financial or professional criteria under U.S. securities law, making them eligible to…
Asset classes beyond publicly traded stocks, bonds, and cash — including private equity, venture capital, private credit, hedge funds, and real assets such as…
The amount an individual may give to any single recipient in a calendar year without triggering a gift-tax filing requirement or reducing the lifetime gift and…
Anti-money laundering (AML) is the set of laws, regulations, and internal procedures designed to detect and prevent criminals from disguising illegally…
An approval matrix is a documented policy that defines who within the family office is authorized to approve financial transactions or commitments, based on…
Asset allocation is the process of dividing a portfolio across different categories of investments — such as stocks, bonds, real estate, and private equity —…
The legal and structural practice of organizing assets so that a judgment against one entity or family member cannot automatically reach assets held elsewhere.
An asset-based fee is a recurring charge calculated as a percentage of the total assets a manager or advisor oversees on a client's behalf.
The total current market value of all assets that an investment manager, advisor, or family office is responsible for overseeing on behalf of clients or family…
B
A basis point is one one-hundredth of one percent (0.01%), used as a precise unit for expressing small differences in interest rates, yields, or fees.
A standard index or reference portfolio used to evaluate whether an investment portfolio's returns are reasonable relative to comparable opportunities.
A beneficiary is any person or entity legally entitled to receive assets, income, or other benefits from a trust, insurance policy, retirement account, or…
Bill pay is the centralized process by which a family office collects, reviews, approves, and pays all invoices and obligations across family members and legal…
A brokerage account is an account held at a financial firm that allows the account owner to hold, buy, and sell securities such as stocks, bonds, and funds.
A private equity transaction in which an investor acquires a controlling interest in a company, typically using a combination of equity and borrowed money — a…
C
A capital account is a running ledger balance inside a partnership that tracks each partner's contributions, withdrawals, and allocated share of profits and…
A capital call is a formal request from a fund manager to investors to transfer a portion of their committed capital, triggered when the fund is ready to…
A capitalization table is a record showing every owner of a company's equity, how much each owns, and in what form — broken down by share class and accounting…
Carried interest, or "carry," is the share of a fund's investment profits paid to the general partner as performance compensation, typically earned only after…
A charitable lead trust (CLT) is a trust that pays an income stream to one or more charities for a set term, after which the remaining assets pass to family…
A charitable remainder trust (CRT) is a trust that pays income to the family or other named beneficiaries for a period, then transfers whatever remains to one…
The senior executive within a family office or investment organization who owns the investment strategy, oversees the portfolio, and is ultimately accountable…
A club deal is a single investment made jointly by a small group of investors — often family offices or institutions — who pool capital for one specific…
A co-investment is a direct stake in a single deal made alongside a lead sponsor — typically a private equity or venture fund — often on more favorable fee…
Committed capital is the total dollar amount an investor has legally pledged to contribute to a fund, which is then drawn down over time through capital calls…
The danger that arises when an outsized share of a family's wealth is tied to a single asset, company, industry, or manager, making overall financial health…
Concierge or lifestyle services are non-financial support functions a family office provides to manage the personal lives, travel, households, and events of…
Consolidated reporting is the practice of aggregating data from all of a family's accounts, entities, and asset classes into a single unified view of…
Cost basis is the original value assigned to an asset for tax purposes — typically what was paid for it — which is subtracted from the sale price to calculate…
A custodian is a financial institution that holds and safeguards a family's investment assets, executes settlement of trades, and produces official account…
An insurance policy that covers financial losses and response costs arising from data breaches, fraud, ransomware, and related cyber events.
D
A data room is an organized, secure collection of documents — today usually hosted digitally — that a family or company assembles to support a transaction…
Deal flow is the ongoing stream of investment opportunities — companies, assets, or projects seeking capital — that reaches an investor for potential…
A direct investment is the purchase of an ownership stake, property, or loan in a specific company or asset without using a pooled fund as an intermediary.
Direct lending is the practice of a non-bank lender — such as a fund or family office — providing a loan directly to a company without using a bank as…
Insurance that covers the personal legal liability of board members and officers arising from decisions made in their official capacity, often called D&O…
A distribution is a return of cash or other assets from a fund or investment vehicle to its investors, representing either realized profits, returned capital…
A distribution waterfall is the contractual order in which a private fund returns money to investors and pays the fund manager its share of profits.
Distributions to Paid-In (DPI) measures the cash actually returned to investors divided by the capital they contributed, reflecting only realized gains rather…
The practice of spreading investments across different asset classes, geographies, industries, and structures so that the failure of any single holding does…
A donor-advised fund (DAF) is a charitable giving account held at a sponsoring organization that grants the donor an immediate tax deduction while allowing…
The peak-to-trough decline in a portfolio's value, measuring how far it fell from its highest point before recovering.
Dual control is an operational requirement that two authorized individuals must independently review and approve a financial transaction before it is executed.
Due diligence (DD) is the structured investigation a family office or investor conducts on a potential investment before committing any capital.
A dynasty trust is a long-duration irrevocable trust designed to hold and distribute wealth across multiple generations, sometimes for many decades or longer.
E
EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization — a measure of operating profit widely used in private markets as a shorthand…
An embedded family office is an informal arrangement in which the family's wealth management functions are handled inside an existing operating business rather…
An investment philosophy that emphasizes long time horizons and significant allocations to alternative assets, modeled on the approach developed by large…
ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance — a framework that identifies non-financial risk and opportunity factors that investors commonly analyze…
An estate manager is a professional hired to oversee the day-to-day operations of one or more private residences, including staff, maintenance, vendors, and…
A tax levied on the total value of a deceased person's taxable estate before assets are distributed to heirs, assessed above a legally defined exemption…
Estimated taxes are quarterly prepayments that individuals and entities make to tax authorities when their income is not subject to automatic withholding…
F
A family assembly is a periodic gathering of all eligible family members — regardless of role — primarily for shared information, relationship-building, and…
A family constitution is a written document that records a family's shared values, governance structures, decision-making rules, and policies — morally and…
A family council is a smaller, elected or appointed body of family representatives that handles ongoing governance decisions and coordination between the…
Family governance is the set of structures, policies, and regular processes through which a family makes collective decisions about wealth, shared assets…
A family limited partnership (FLP) is a limited partnership whose partners are exclusively family members or family-controlled entities, used to pool assets…
A family LLC is a limited liability company owned entirely or primarily by family members or family entities, used to hold, manage, and govern shared assets…
A family office is the organizational infrastructure a family builds around significant wealth to manage investments, finances, legal affairs, and family needs…
A fiduciary is a person or institution legally and ethically obligated to act in the best interest of another party, placing that party's interests above their…
A fund of funds (FoF) is an investment fund whose portfolio consists entirely of positions in other funds rather than directly in securities or assets.
G
A general partner (GP) is the managing party in a partnership who controls operations and bears full personal liability for the partnership's obligations.
An additional transfer tax imposed on gifts or inheritances that pass to recipients who are two or more generations below the donor, such as grandchildren…
A federal tax on large transfers of wealth made during a person's lifetime, designed to prevent individuals from avoiding estate tax by giving assets away…
A grantor (also called a settlor) is the person who creates a trust, contributes assets to fund it, and establishes the rules under which it operates.
A grantor trust is any trust whose income tax liability falls on the person who created it rather than on the trust itself.
H
A hedge fund is a privately organized pooled investment vehicle that pursues an active investment strategy — often using leverage, short selling, or…
An informal label — commonly abbreviated HNW — for individuals or families with significant investable wealth, typically sitting below the ultra-high-net-worth…
A holding company is a legal entity whose primary purpose is to own interests in other entities or assets rather than to conduct operations, sell products, or…
I
The additional return investors expect to earn in exchange for committing capital to an investment they cannot easily sell or exit.
Impact investing means deploying capital into companies, funds, or projects with the explicit intention of generating measurable positive social or…
A pre-documented plan defining exactly who does what, in what order, during and after a security breach, fraud attempt, or data exposure event.
Internal rate of return (IRR) is the annualized rate at which the present value of all cash inflows from an investment exactly equals the cash invested…
The U.S. federal law enacted in 1940 that regulates investment advisers, requires qualifying firms to register with the SEC, and establishes the fiduciary duty…
An Investment Committee (IC) is the formal body within a family office responsible for reviewing, approving, and overseeing investment decisions according to…
An Investment Policy Statement (IPS) is a written document that defines how a family's capital will be invested, setting out goals, risk tolerance, asset class…
An irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) is a trust that owns a life insurance policy so the death benefit passes outside the insured's taxable estate.
An irrevocable trust is a legal arrangement that, once established, generally cannot be changed or revoked by the person who created it.
J
The J-Curve describes the pattern where a private fund's reported returns dip negative in its early years before rising as investments mature and are realized.
K
Life or disability insurance taken out on an individual whose skills, relationships, or knowledge are so critical that their loss would cause significant…
Key-person risk is the operational and strategic vulnerability that arises when a family office or family business depends so heavily on one individual that…
Know Your Customer (KYC) is the process financial institutions use to verify the identity, background, and legitimacy of clients before and during a business…
L
A preliminary document, often called an LOI, in which one or both parties express a serious intention to proceed with a transaction on broadly stated terms.
Life insurance, in a planning context, is a contract that pays a defined sum at the insured's death, commonly used by families to create immediate liquidity or…
A passive investor in a limited partnership who contributes capital and shares in profits and losses but takes no part in management and whose liability is…
A limited partnership is a legal entity with at least one general partner who manages and one or more limited partners who invest passively and whose liability…
A line of credit is a pre-approved borrowing arrangement that lets a borrower draw funds up to a set limit, repay, and draw again as needed.
The ease and speed with which an asset can be converted into cash at or near its fair value, without materially moving its price in the process.
M
A management company is the entity within a family office structure that employs staff, pays operating expenses, and typically charges a management fee to the…
Mezzanine debt is a layer of financing that sits between a company's senior loans and its equity, often carrying higher interest rates and warrants that give…
A micro family office is an informal term for a deliberately small family office — typically one to three people — that uses technology and outsourced…
A mission-related investment (MRI) is an investment made from an endowment that is expected to earn a market-rate return while also advancing the foundation's…
A return calculation that accounts for the timing and size of cash flows in and out of a portfolio, reflecting the actual experience of the investor.
A login security method requiring a user to verify identity through two or more independent factors — something known, something owned, or something physical —…
A multi-family office (MFO) is an organization that provides family-office-style services to several unrelated families, typically charging fees for access to…
Multiple on Invested Capital (MOIC) measures total value returned from an investment divided by the amount originally invested, without adjusting for how long…
N
The value of a fund's or legal entity's total assets minus its total liabilities, often expressed on a per-share or per-unit basis and commonly abbreviated NAV.
Net-of-fees return is the investment gain a family actually keeps after subtracting all management fees, performance fees, and fund expenses.
A net-worth statement is a point-in-time financial summary that lists all of a family's or individual's assets and subtracts all liabilities to arrive at a…
"Next generation" (or "next-gen") refers to the younger family members — adult children, grandchildren, and beyond — whom a family office works to educate…
O
An operating agreement is the foundational legal contract governing an LLC, specifying how the company is managed, how profits and losses are allocated, and…
An operating company is a business entity that generates revenue by selling goods or services to customers, employing workers, and conducting day-to-day…
Operational due diligence (ODD) is the investigation of an investment manager's internal infrastructure — custody arrangements, valuation processes, compliance…
A firm hired to manage a family's entire investment program in place of an in-house chief investment officer, acting as an extension of the family office team.
P
A software application that generates, encrypts, and stores unique passwords for every account in a single protected vault, accessed through one strong master…
The discipline of calculating, attributing, and honestly presenting investment returns across every asset class a family owns.
A personal financial statement (PFS) is a standardized summary of an individual's assets and liabilities, most commonly prepared in the format lenders or…
Philanthropy is the organized practice of giving money, assets, or time to advance public benefit, treated within a family office as a deliberate, managed…
A fraudulent message — usually email, text, or voice — designed to trick a recipient into revealing credentials, authorizing a payment, or installing harmful…
The family member or members whose accumulated wealth a family office exists to serve and who hold final decision-making authority over the office.
A financial institution that bundles banking, lending, custody, investment advisory, and often trust services specifically for high-net-worth and…
Loans and other debt instruments originated by non-bank lenders — including family offices and private funds — rather than traditional commercial banks or…
Ownership stakes in privately held companies, accessed through funds managed by general partners or through direct investments made by a family itself.
A private foundation is a tax-exempt legal entity established and controlled by a family or individual to pursue charitable purposes, funded primarily by that…
Probate is the court-supervised legal process that validates a deceased person's will, settles debts, and transfers remaining assets to heirs.
A program-related investment (PRI) is a foundation investment made primarily to advance its charitable mission rather than to generate financial return, and it…
Q
A qualified purchaser (QP) is a person or entity meeting a higher U.S. legal standard of investment sophistication, unlocking access to a broader range of…
A quality of earnings (QoE) analysis is an accounting review that examines whether a private company's reported earnings accurately reflect its true, recurring…
R
The process of buying and selling assets to restore a portfolio to its target allocation after market movements have caused actual weights to drift from…
A firm or individual registered under U.S. federal or state law to provide investment advice for compensation, bound by a fiduciary duty to act in clients'…
A revocable trust is a legal arrangement a person creates during their lifetime to hold assets, which they can freely change or cancel at any time.
S
A Schedule K-1 is a U.S. tax form that a partnership, S-corporation, or trust sends to each owner, reporting that owner's allocated share of income…
An SEC rule that exempts qualifying single-family offices from registering as investment advisers, provided they meet specific conditions about who they serve…
Secondaries are transactions in which an investor buys an existing stake in a private fund or private company from another investor, rather than committing…
A borrowing arrangement in which an investor pledges a portfolio of securities as collateral for a loan without selling the underlying assets, commonly…
A separately managed account (SMA) is a portfolio of securities managed by a professional investment manager directly in the client's own account, rather than…
A single-family office (SFO) is a dedicated organization owned and funded entirely by one family to manage that family's wealth and affairs.
Situs is the legal jurisdiction whose laws govern a trust — determining rules on taxation, creditor protection, duration, and administration.
A manipulation technique where attackers exploit human trust or authority rather than technical vulnerabilities to gain access to money, data, or systems.
A separate legal entity created for a single investment, deal, or asset, designed to isolate ownership, liability, and economics from the investor's other…
A formal rule that governs how much money a family or its office draws from the investment portfolio each year to fund distributions, operations, or…
A tax provision that resets the cost basis of an inherited asset to its fair market value at the owner's date of death, potentially eliminating capital gains…
The long-term target percentage mix of asset classes a family office holds, designed to match the family's goals, time horizon, and tolerance for loss.
Succession planning is the ongoing process of preparing for leadership, ownership, and wealth-management transitions across generations in both the family and…
T
Short-term, deliberate tilts away from a portfolio's strategic target mix, intended to take advantage of near-term market conditions before returning to the…
Tax coordination is the ongoing, year-round process of managing tax obligations across all of a family's entities, investments, and family members in a unified…
Tax-loss harvesting is the practice of selling an investment that has declined in value specifically to realize a loss that can be used to offset taxable gains…
A non-binding document outlining the key proposed terms of an investment or acquisition deal before a formal agreement is drafted.
Time-weighted return (TWR) is a method of calculating investment performance that removes the distorting effect of cash deposits and withdrawals, isolating the…
Total Value to Paid-In (TVPI) is a fund-level multiple calculated by dividing the sum of all distributions paid to investors plus the current remaining…
A trust is a legal arrangement in which one party holds and manages assets for the benefit of another, governed by a written document called the trust…
A trust protector is an independent third party named in a trust document and granted specific powers to modify or oversee the trust after it is created.
A trustee is the individual or institution legally responsible for managing trust assets and administering the trust according to its governing document and…
U
An informal label — commonly abbreviated UHNW — applied to individuals or families whose net worth reaches into the tens of millions of dollars or more, with…
A personal liability insurance policy that pays claims exceeding the limits of underlying home, auto, or other base policies, providing a broader layer of…
V
A form of private equity that provides funding to early-stage or growth-stage companies in exchange for an ownership stake, accepting high failure rates in…
Vintage year is the calendar year in which a private fund first calls capital from investors and begins making investments, used as a reference point for…
A virtual family office (VFO) is a coordinated network of independent, outsourced specialists who collectively deliver family-office services without any…
W
Wealth transfer is the movement of assets from one generation to another, accomplished through gifts, inheritances, trusts, or other legal mechanisms during…
A legal document in which a person states how their assets should be distributed after death and, commonly, names guardians for minor children and an executor…
Wire fraud, in the family office context, is a cyberattack in which criminals impersonate a trusted person or institution to trick the office into sending…