Pitcairn, the Jenkintown, Pennsylvania-based multi-family office that officially opened its New York City office yesterday, could double its $2.9 billion in assets under management within five years, said William Rankin, the firm’s new managing director.

Pitcairn, the Jenkintown, Pennsylvania-based multi-family office that officially opened its New York City office yesterday, could double its $2.9 billion in assets under management within five years, said William Rankin, the firm’s new managing director.

Mr Rankin, the former president and chief executive of Shelterwood Financial, a multi-family office that was absorbed by Pitcairn last year, will oversee the New York office along with Alanson Houghton, who was chief investment officer for Shelterwood, and will head the New York office.

Mr Rankin said he would spend time working with Pitcairn president and chief operating officer Leslie Voth on business development as a “roving center fielder".

“I want to help take Pitcairn from where it is now to where I think it can be,” he said. “I think Pitcairn is in a place where it can easily double its presence in the marketplace.”

Mr Rankin said he’s betting that Pitcairn’s family sponsorship, independence and “unquestioned integrity in the marketplace” will resonate with other wealthy families in the wake of the financial crisis.

He also expressed confidence that Pitcairn would be able to add clients in the competitive New York market.

“A lot of families have historically been very reliant on large institutional providers,” Mr Rankin said. “But in the last few years some of those firms don’t exist anymore or have had problems that raise questions about their reliability and integrity, and families are less sure they want to stay with them.”

Pitcairn will also target families with their own single family offices who are either “financially challenged” or in transition, he said.

“There is clearly a phenomenon where those families are looking for trusted third parties to provide ancillary services or partnerships,” Mr Rankin said. “We think they will trust another family the way they wouldn’t trust a large institution.”

The biggest challenge facing Pitcairn and other multi-family offices in New York is “consistency of client experience,” said Elizabeth Mathieu, a partner at SFO Advisor Select, Greenwich, Connecticut-based consultancy for families and family offices.

What’s more, the high cost of doing business in New York makes another industry-wide service challenge even more daunting, Ms Mathieu said.

“The highest cost for these firms is associated with services they don’t charge for, such as governance, education and philanthropic advice,” she said. “They will have to be creative in terms of how they charge their clients.”

Mr Rankin agreed, and said Pitcairn was unbundling pricing based on wealth levels of its clients (new clients are required to have at least $25 million in investable assets).

Initially, Pitcairn’s New York office will keep costs down with only have two support staff working with Mr Rankin and Mr Haughton, although a certified financial planner may be added later this year.

In addition to working out of New York and Jenkintown, Mr Rankin said he will also spend time in Phoenix, working on business development with Manley Law, a local law firm with ties to wealthy families as a trust and estate planning specialist.