WE Family Offices has forged an alliance with Madrid-based MdF Family Partners in which they will remain separate entities but share resources, networks and intellectual capital.

WE Family Offices has forged an alliance with Madrid-based MdF Family Partners in which they will remain separate entities but share resources, networks and intellectual capital.

WE Family Offices, with offices in New York and Miami, FL, currently serves more than 65 families and advises on over $3 billion. MdF Family Partners, based in Madrid and with offices in Barcelona, Geneva and Mexico City, currently serves more than 20 families and advises on $1 billion.

Maria Elena Lagomasino, managing partner and chief executive of WE Family Offices, said clients of each firm will continue to be advised as they always have, but will benefit from access to a deeper global investment platform and broader wealth planning services across multiple jurisdictions including the US, Latin America, Europe and Switzerland.

The move by the two firms reflects the family office industry’s increasing focus on the globalization of wealth and families themselves. Click here for a recent interview on that topic.

“In our work with families, we were seeing that their needs were becoming more complex, and more global,” Lagomasino told Family Wealth Report. “In many cases we work with families based here in the US, but with family elsewhere in the world, or international families with members in multiple countries. Those families need help to manage the complexity of multiple domiciles, particularly with estate and tax planning.”

She added: “For example, after the crash of 2008 and the decline in real estate pricing, some of our client families decided to invest in real estate – particularly in Spain. When they began to ask us for assistance, we realized we may need more international resources to serve them.”

The alliance has formalized what will be an exchange of resources, she said, with no exchange in equity or changes in governance or operations.