Multifamily office unit of Harris PB says its is maintaining service levels. Harris Private Bank has eliminated "fewer than 20 positions" from its myCFO multifamily-office unit in an effort to control costs in the face of a protracted economic downturn, according to a spokesman for the Chicago-based bank.

"The cutbacks go to different roles across the enterprise and aren't centered at any one location," says Harris Private Bank's Chris Nardella. "We're addressing global economic and market conditions while continuing to deliver the same high level of service our clients have come to expect."

Sketchy

Nardella declines to name any of the down-sized Harris myCFO staffers, but he says the ultra-high-wealth unit remains with "a very strong team in place." He adds that other Harris Private Bank units have been downsized as well, but declines to provide details.

Despite the staffing roll-back, Nardella says myCFO wouldn't blind to "strategic" expansion opportunities similar to its recent takeover of Chicago-based CPA Pierce Givens and Associates. Harris Private Bank is part of Harris, a Chicago-based retail and commercial banking subsidiary Toronto-based BMO Financial Group.

BMO paid $30 million for myCFO in 2002. The late 1990s brainchild of Netscape founder Jim Clark, the firm was hailed as a high-flying, tech-edged alternative to more traditional private-wealth advisories -- a kind of web-based "virtual" multifamily office for the so-called New Economy. Since then, the firm has taken a decidedly more low-key approach; a stance perhaps in keeping with its role as a bank-affiliated advisory for families with liquid assets of at least $25 million.

The metrics around Harris myCFO are sketchy. Officially, it doesn't give out its assets under management or supervision. At the time of its acquisition BMO said it had "client relationships representing about $5.7 billion in assets under management," according to a 2002 BMO press release. A 2005 survey of multifamily offices by the Family Wealth Alliance, an Wheaton, Ill.-based consultancy to ultra-wealthy families, Harris myCFO advised on $29 billion in client assets at the end of 2004 -- a surge that seems to have resulted from the re-positioning of Harris Private Bank clients.

In any case, the firm's investment platform Harris myCFO Investment Advisory Services had $7.5 billion in assets under management across 1,980 accounts on 5 May 2008. MyCFO has offices in Redwood City, Calif., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta and Fort Lee, N.J. -FWR

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