There’s a new, enlarged US multi-family office firm borne out of the merger of Matter Family Office and IWP Family Office, Family Wealth Report can exclusively reveal today. They’ve combined to build a business with more than $10 billion of assets under advisement, serving more than 140 families across the country.
St Louis, Denver and Dallas-based Matter Family Office was founded in 1990, while IWP Family Office, headquartered in Denver, is two decades’ old – founded in 2005.
In a departure from some transactions that have been a feature of a busy M&A market in recent years, the firm's structure includes perpetual capital, not a private equity fund backed investment.
The unified firm will set the standard for an integrated “forever” multi-family office, the parties to the arrangement said in a statement.
“We wanted to build scale and size to fulfil the promise of a three, four generation family office and that can be a 100 per cent privately held company,” Katherine Lintz , founder and managing partner of Matter Family Office, told FWR.
Asked about how the end clients rank in the thinking behind this merger, Lintz said: “The first goal is to fulfil a promise to families to be there for them across generations. We want to invest in bringing more talent to Matter families and to expand our service lines.”
“Matter’s wonderful client families appreciate that they don’t need to worry about being sold to a roll-up,” she continued. “We did not talk to any of the rollup firms. We did not want to recapitalize this business every five years,” she said.
Lintz’s comments referred to a pattern of private equity firms buying into the wealth management sector, attracted by the revenues of a sector tapping into multi-trillion-dollar wealth transfer. While Lintz is careful not to criticize the idea of PE money in the sector or transactions, she said this approach was not a suitable fit for Matter Family Office.
Technology
FWR could not resist asking Lintz about the dominant theme of AI and how such technology affects the sector, including organizations such as hers.
“AI is going to help us be more efficient, no question,” she said, noting how many traditional manual tasks and processes are becoming automated. A benefit is using all this new efficiency to enable people to do other tasks instead. “We see AI as allowing us to redeploy talent to go deeper with a family and being able to provide higher valued services across the financial and human capital of a multigenerational family. We are defining what it means to be an integrated family wealth management firm," Lintz said.
Lintz warmed to the theme of wanting to set up the enlarged business as one able to serve multi-generational families thinking in terms of a century of growth and stewardship. The idea of a four-generation family stretching over 100 years and served by one pot of wealth is relatively new, given lifespan changes, she said.
The multi-generation point leads Lintz to note that the focus on “Next Gen” issues, which appears to be a preoccupation in much wealth management commentary, is becoming rather dated – a bit “last year.”
“We are looking at all-generation education. Think of each family member needing education and skills to pass wisdom and wealth across generations. For example, the patriarch/matriarch has as much to learn as the grandchildren. He/she has never led a wealth transfer process before!” she said.
Details
The merger brings together more than 90 professionals across offices in St Louis, Denver and Dallas-Fort Worth. Besides Lintz, who serves as managing partner, there is also Charlie Willhoit , founder and president of IWP Family Office. Willhoit will serve as managing partner and CEO of the new organization.
Charlie Willhoit
BW Forsyth Partners funded the transaction, for which specific financial details were not disclosed.
“IWP brings complementary expertise that enhances the way we support families for generations to come,” Lintz said in the statement about the merger.
Willhoit said: “With the combination of IWP and Matter, we are bringing expanded ultra-high net worth investment services, in-depth family office administration and proprietary family-centric learning and communication programs under one roof. The ability to integrate these pillars of family office management and execute for our clients is game-changing.”