Ultra-wealth principles inspire new business unit

Thomas Coyle

24 June 2009

U.S. wealth manager creates consulting group to help family offices thrive. Lowenhaupt Global Advisors , a St. Louis, Mo.-based advisory to high-wealth families around the world, has hired former U.S. Trust private-client advisor Linda Vitaletti as a principal. She'll focus on LGA's Family Office Advisory Services, a new group dedicated to helping North American single-family offices improve operational discipline and clarity in the face of capital-market turmoil and widespread dislocation in the financial-service industry.

"LGA's Family Office Advisory Services was formed to help single-family offices access the firm's expertise in process and efficiency," says Charles Lowenhaupt, CEO of LGA and managing member of the St. Louis, Mo.-based law firm Lowenhaupt & Chasnoff. "Linda Vitaletti understands the challenges facing single-family offices and will play a key role in helping us help families achieve their goals of protecting and preserving their wealth."

Principles

One way to understand LGA's Family Office Advisory Services group is to view it in connection with the Principles of Private Wealth Management, a set of best-practice guidelines set down by LGA with input from its own Global Council advisory panel and ethical-standards expert Don Trone. With recent scandals in mind, the principles are meant to help ultra-high-net-worth families assess financial-service providers to minimize the risk of mismanagement and fraud.

"Many families today are looking to established family offices like for advice and support to manage through a very difficult time," says Lowenhaupt. "LGA's Family Office Advisory Services was formed to help single-family offices access the firm's expertise in process and efficiency."

New York-based Vitaletti joined U.S. Trust as a business-development officer in 2006 and became an advisor after Bank of America bought the firm from Schwab and made it the centerpiece of its private-client and ultra-high-net-worth businesses in 2007, leaving in September 2008. Prior to U.S. Trust, Vitaletti spent 10 years with the brokerage unit of Chase Bank .

" has the resources and expertise to help families improve transparency, compensation structures, governance and succession, philanthropy and community involvement, access to information, as well as the oversight and monitoring of investment managers," says Vitaletti. "I'm looking forward to building on the momentum generated by the principles to help families better manage their wealth."

In conjunction with 101-year-old Lowenhaupt & Chasnoff, LGA advises ultra-high-net-worth families on taxation, probate, estate planning, wealth-transfer strategies, investment-portfolio allocation and business structuring. In addition to locations in St. Louis and New York, LGA has an office in Sydney, Australia. -FWR

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