Strong demand from wealthy families and single family offices has resulted in a new St Louis multi-family office founded by Joan Malloy, Christopher Thompson and John Tiffin.

Demand remains strong for multi-family office services, despite an overuse of the term, said wealth management veteran Joan Malloy, who opened up a new firm, Greenway Family Office, in St Louis yesterday.

“The opportunity is there for a unique offering,” Malloy told Family Wealth Report. She said Greenway would target wealthy families in the St Louis area with liquid assets of at least $10 million and an overall net worth of at least $25 million, as well as single family offices.

For families, Greenway plans to first assess what she termed “human capital” - the physical, educational, emotional well-being of the family and the relationships within the family. The assessment also gauges the family’s “social capital,”  Malloy said, which she defined as the outward expression of the family’s values through civic, political, religious, charitable and other endeavors.

“Most advisors spend more time preparing money for the family as opposed to preparing the family for the money,” she said. “We want to reverse that.”

In addition, she said, Greenway partners will only work with ten families or less.

The firm is also in discussions with several single family offices, underscoring a finding in yesterday’s Family Wealth Alliance annual survey that smaller SFOs with assets less than $100 million are concerned about their viability and are considering options including alliances with multi-family offices.

“There’s so much a multi-family office can offer,” Malloy said. “We can offer enhanced services for SFOs or completely integrate them into the offering.”

Greenway’s biggest challenge was the “dilution of the [multi-family office] brand,” she said. “Everybody says they’re a multi-family office now. It’s become an overused buzzword.”

Technology and experience will help the firm overcome a lack of scale initially, Malloy said. Greenway is in negotiations with several vendors to provide an open architecture platform, and she also cited the best practices partners would bring to the firm based on their experience.

Co-founding partner Christopher Thompson was chief family office executive at Lowenhaupt Global Advisors, where he had responsibility for service teams, client family management, building resources and family service offerings. He previously worked as an analyst within a single family office, and as a private client manager at Bank of America.

The firm’s other founding partner is John Tiffin, most recently a wealth management advisor for JP Morgan. Tiffin is an attorney who has specialized in estate planning, probate and trust administration and has also worked for Bank of America.

Malloy, a chartered financial analyst and a certified financial planner was a co-founder of St Louis Trust Company in 2002 and served as president until she left last September in a disagreement over strategic direction. She is also a certified public accountant who has worked for Price Waterhouse and Arthur Andersen.

Charles Lowenhaupt, chief executive of Lowenhaupt Global Advisors, also based in St Louis, said Greenway’s formation confirmed the demand for help among families and single family offices.

“There are a number of companies starting to meet that demand and I think we’ll see even more to come,” Lowenhaupt said.