Hello, and welcome to Modus, a new independent media company that publishes a weekly newsletter, short and long-form articles, opinion essays, and more for family-office professionals.
I’m Michael Thrasher, the founder and editor. I recently left Institutional Investor magazine to dedicate all my time to journalism for this increasingly influential group.
The concept of a family office, a private company that manages investments, taxes and other affairs for its beneficiaries, has existed for over a century and recently gained popularity. Thousands have been created by billionaires and other wealthy families over the past 20 years, and there are now more than 10,000 worldwide.
Some offices have just a few employees and a relatively small, unexciting $100 million investment portfolio. Others have hundreds of employees, including investment teams like those at institutions, overseeing $100 billion or more. Their impact on financial markets and services is significant and growing. Collectively, family offices control over $6 trillion in assets — more than the entire hedge fund industry — and individual offices own meaningful stakes directly in companies of all sizes (or own the companies entirely).
Beyond their investment portfolios, family offices are powerful reflections of their principals and can quickly reshape the real estate and art markets, philanthropy or politics.
Enabling the above are thousands of family-office employees and an even bigger universe of professionals at wealth and asset managers, investment banks, law and accounting firms, consultants, software companies and other service providers. All types of organizations are being established or continuing to evolve in an effort to better cater to family offices.
Surprisingly, those professionals feel journalistically underserved. Family offices are known for their secrecy, but during the past year of reporting and learning about them, plenty of people returned my emails and calls. They were excited about the prospect of impartial, high-quality journalism that could help them better serve their employer or clients.
I chose the name Modus — a mode of procedure or way of doing something — because if the publication achieves its mission, reading it will become a necessary part of every family-office professional’s routine.
You can subscribe to the free weekly newsletter here and follow Modus on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter). I look forward to sending the first issue and hearing your feedback soon.
Mike
Founder & Editor