Summer is, among other things, the season of family-office surveys and reports. Half a dozen are published by banks, asset managers, recruiting firms, and independent researchers each year. As they are released, an online race ensues among the employees of the organizations publishing the reports, journalists, and others to write and post about them on social media. The opportunity to draw attention and extract as much value as possible from the coattails of a biennial Goldman Sachs family-office report cannot be missed!
Now that most of the 2025 reports are out, which one was the best? Each report has its nuances, but much of the content is similar. Will one emerge as a favorite point of reference during the next 12 months, as journalists write about family offices and others create content?
The answer wasn't obvious to Modus, especially when it came to the average strategic asset allocations. Is the best report the one that surveyed the most offices? The one that collected data most recently? Or the report with the most detailed parsing of their portfolios?
Reading one report, someone could think that the average family office isn't investing in private credit at all, while other reports suggest that allocation has steadily grown from zero to a target of 5%. According to another report, it appears that the average office is investing significantly in crypto (7% of their portfolio!). Meanwhile, the crypto allocation in other reports is a rounding error within the marginal "other" category (1% or less).
It's possible for all of those things above to be true. These reports are based on different surveys conducted at various times, and they don't have the same respondents. For a journalist, that complicates the reporting process. Choosing different reports to reference throughout Modus newsletters and articles for the next 12 months could potentially confuse readers and necessitate repetitive explanations.
In an effort to address these issues and help everyone better understand how family offices invest, I've created the Modus Family Office Allocation Index, which represents the average strategic asset allocation across hundreds of large, single-family offices, using analogous data from five financial services firms.
Like the Modus Family Office Technology Map, the allocation index requires explanation and footnotes, so a methodology and some analysis are included.
Recommendations — such as other reports to consider including, or related features you'd like to see — are encouraged. Check out the allocation index here and reply to this email to share your thoughts.
The Modus newsletter is an unrivaled opportunity to advertise to family-office professionals alongside independent journalism they trust, and that informs their decisions. The performance speaks for itself:
• 1,600+ subscribers (300+ single-family offices, as well as hundreds of UHNW wealth managers, coverage groups at asset managers and investment banks, consultants, and other family-office professionals). This list grows every day.
• 60%+ unique open rate.
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To learn more or request a sales deck, email Michael Thrasher: michael.thrasher@modus.news
More News
- Attorneys for Tony Hsieh’s Family Find Few Clues About Surprise Will.
- Mike Bezos, the father of Jeff Bezos, hired Valeria Alberola to run his family office.
- U.S. family offices pay CEOs more than ones in other regions.
- Confirmed: Asset managers have terrible websites. Apex Group, the asset serving company, reviewed 1,000 websites of private-equity and venture-capital firms and found that nearly 80% of them had low readability, while only 3% were easy to read.
- Mr. Family Office, the mostly anonymous media company that launched its own investor community this past summer, has partnered with the Swiss executive search firm Tagliabue & Partners on “a deeply collaborative, human-centered approach that is enhanced by A.I., we’re taking executive hiring from 3 months to 3 weeks.” That’s five weeks faster than the eight-week goal that other family-office recruiters leveraging A.I. have set for themselves. Can the time between a new job order and a signed offer letter be consistently condensed to less than one month?
- FT Alphaville asked: How bad could private credit default rates get? The answer is bad. And there are some good charts and reminders in there, too. It used to be normal for 10-12% of PE investments to fail. Now, almost no deals are a bust because GPs are realizing so few of their investments, the FT pointed out.
- The Billionaire, the Psychedelics and the Best-Selling Memoir.
- I wrote a few weeks ago that AI slop churners have all but ruined LinkedIn. This week, Harvard Business Review dissected how and why AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity. The takeaway is blunt: “So much activity, so much enthusiasm, so little return.”
- A new way to one-up other superwealthy families: Be interesting enough that someone makes a television show about you. While watching “Downton Abbey,” the TV drama about the Crawley family, Guinness brewery scion Ivana Lowell thought to herself, “Our family is so much more interesting and eccentric.” She pitched the idea and after years of work, “House of Guinness” hit Netflix last week.
- GQ’s 125 Rules for Modern Gentlemen is required reading — for its good reminders and a few laughs.
Jobs
- The Justice Department, with a directive from President Trump, has its sights on Open Society Foundations, whose investments are managed by Soros Fund Management, the global asset manager and family office founded by George Soros. On the surface, possible prosecution doesn’t seem to be slowing the company’s search for a family office controller. It reposted the job on LinkedIn and over 100 people applied in one day.
- A single-family office in New York City is hiring a special events and travel manager. It sounds like they are effectively looking for a personal travel agent who will be “the point person for end-to-end planning, overseeing everything from strategic concept development to on-the-ground coordination” of luxury-level experiences. According to the posting: “This role will also manage additional hospitality projects across properties,” so perhaps the employers are hotel, restaurant, and club owners and operators? It pays $175,000.
Other Stuff
- Almost 1,700 people follow Modus on LinkedIn because it doesn't clog your feed with worthless A.I. slop. (Modus does not use generative A.I. to write a single word in any email or social media post.)
- What makes a good news tip? Documentation and other things. You can reply to this email and share information with me in confidence, or message me on Signal using a personal device that is not accessible by your employer.
I will be in...
- N.Y.C. for a few weeks. Looking forward to meeting or catching up with many of you.
- Chicago, the week of October 27, for IceMiller’s Family Office Private Capital Forum. I'm doing a fireside chat with Noelle Laing, CIO of Builders Initiative. If you work for a family office and would like to attend, apply here. It's going to be awesome!
