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A silhouette of the U.S. with dollar signs across it. Illustration by Modus.
This week, ESPN and a longtime broadcaster signed a deal that passionate armchair fans will dream about. Joe Buck, the “Monday Night Football” commentator, agreed to a six-year extension for $108 million. It's a nice pay bump; his previous contract, ending after this season, was for five years and $75 million.
If he didn’t have one already, surely Buck will start his own family office now, right?
No. In fact, it’s unlikely he will, at least given the latest tally of ultrawealthy Americans by two researchers compared with the estimated number of family offices.
More than 10 years after the U.S. Treasury Department asked economists Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick to figure out the taxes private business actually paid, they have published a book about their research and the incidental findings, “The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There.” Among what the book affirmed and revealed: roughly 65,000 Americans are worth $100 million or more. Most aren’t like Buck. Almost all of them are business owners, and fewer than half hold graduate degrees, Zidar and Zwick found.
Those 65,000 people can effectively afford anything except megayachts, the most desirable private islands and a short list of homes, paintings and more. They certainly have enough money to employ other people to do stuff for them. But a small percentage of the centimillionaires have their own family office.
In 2024, Deloitte estimated about 8,000 single-family offices globally and 3,550 in North America. That means only 5.5% of the 65,000 Americans worth $100 million have one. There are several reasons for this.
Since these Americans are predominantly business owners, thousands of people across their companies have a de facto family-office job. They might be partly or wholly dedicated to helping the owner make various decisions, manage their personal life and more. But if you asked those business owners whether they had a family office, they might say “no.”
Ironically, terms like “virtual family office” have emerged, in which case a person doesn’t employ anyone but outsources investing, financial planning, accounting and personal services to others. (What is the difference between that and what a growing number of wealth management firms offer, or what so many people do on their own? By that definition, tens of millions of Americans have family offices, and Modus would have many more readers.)
A small percentage of centimillionaires have a family office because they have probably adopted the most accepted definition: a non-commercial organization that employs people to manage investments and other things for—as the name suggests—one family. Even if they have the need and appetite to create and manage an office, they might acknowledge that they can’t afford their vision for it.
Family-office budgets are generally half a percentage point of the assets they manage. Offices overseeing $1 billion of assets would then have only $5 million per year to operate, which doesn’t go far. Employee compensation is the biggest expense, and family-office executives are paid well in the U.S. and elsewhere. The software needed to run an office is getting more powerful, but not necessarily cheaper. Increased spending on AI is becoming its own dedicated line item at wealth management firms, and the same could happen at family offices.
Pretend for a moment that the estimated number of single-family offices in North America is totally off. Say, hypothetically, there are twice as many, or over 7,000. That would still mean barely one in 10 centimillionaires would have one.
Family offices—actual ones and the term—are in vogue right now. But the fact that so few people worth more than $100 million seem to have one says something about insourcing the management of wealth and life, even when you’re fabulously rich.
The First Modus Event
Modus co-hosted its first event on Tuesday (Family Office Venture Investing: Managing Your Portfolio of Startups—and Liquidity—Now and In the Future) with Two Meter Capital and Bank of America, and it was a hit!
The “worst” Luma review was three out of five stars (all others were higher), and everyone I spoke with that night had positive things to say.
Thank you to everyone who attended. If there’s any way it could have been better, let us know.
Modus will continue to sporadically do events that are pragmatic, timely, informed, and, importantly, impartial and transparent. If you’re interested in attending or want to learn more about Modus events, you can reply to this newsletter.
A message from Orbis
When everyone agrees, we ask why
At Orbis, we believe compelling long-term opportunities are rarely found where everyone else is already looking. For more than 35 years, the courage to question consensus, conventional wisdom and our own assumptions has shaped how we invest.
As defined in applicable securities law, this information is intended for qualified purchasers in the United States.
More News
Michael Dell’s DFO Management and Sequence Holdings took insurance brokerage Baldwin Group private in a $7.7 billion cash deal.
Addepar, which debuted its own artificial intelligence tool called Addison early this year, was one of the connectors in Anthropic’s Claude for Financial Advisors announced this week. The others were heavy hitters in financial services: BlackRock, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, Envestnet, iCapital, Orion, SS&C Black Diamond, Wealthbox, Wealth.com and Zocks. (Some previous connectors also include FactSet, S&P Global and Morningstar.)
“We believe firms should have flexibility in how they build their technology ecosystems and in the models, interfaces and experiences they choose to use. That’s consistent with how we’ve always built Addepar: as an open platform designed to work across clients’ broader technology ecosystems,” Bob Pisani, CTO at Addepar, said about the MCP connectivity.One of the “big five” Canadian banks (RBC, TD, Scotiabank, BMO and CIBC) is among a handful of large commercial organizations that recently started using MYFO, a software used by family offices and wealth management firms to aggregate investment data, forecast cash flows, and assess risk.
The startup, which raised a $3.5 million seed round in 2024 and has raised a total of $5 million from investors including Andrew Wilkinson’s Tiny Capital and Dave McClure's Practical Ventures, declined to say which bank it has partnered with or provide other details. But the company’s annual recurring revenue doubled in the first half of 2026, MYFO founder Simran Kang told Modus.Cambridge Associates, the investment consultant and OCIO, opened a new office in Milan, which the firm said shows its “commitment to providing bespoke services to current and future institutional and family office investors across the region.”
The company has had clients in the country for decades but declined to share how many single-family-office clients are in Italy.
“We look forward to helping Italy’s UHNW families preserve and grow their wealth. We plan to host an exclusive event in Italy later this year for family wealth owners to share best practices on navigating the complexities of wealth ownership, legacy, philanthropy and stewardship. The event has already reached capacity and currently has a waitlist,” the company told Modus.Urban Standard Capital, a New York real-estate investment firm founded in 2014, is launching an evergreen fund dedicated to luxury residential lending to buyers in about 30 markets you’d expect: New York City, The Hamptons, Nantucket, Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Aspen, Vail, Jackson Hole, Miami, etc. It’s targeting $1 billion for this, which says something about luxury residences these days.
It’s safe to assume that many borrowers are wealthy enough to have a family office. Urban Standard Capital has previously done $879.1 million of single-family luxury loans across only 127 deals, and 70% of them are “repeat business, direct relationships or referrals, reflecting a well-established network that creates a consistent pipeline.”Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein on why he paid $1.7 billion for the Baltimore Orioles.
The Future of Junk Food Could Be Healthy Food—that’s great for human health overall, but a little disgruntling for us Cheetos lovers…
Jobs
Browning Oil Company, Inc., a privately held, family-owned exploration and production company, is looking for a family-office-esque administrative/executive assistant in Dallas. Oil and gas experience is preferable but not mandatory. They want someone “highly organized, dependable, and proactive.” Salary is $95,000. Those interested or who know someone should reach out to President and CEO Kelly Blackwood: [email protected].
Eric McCarthy, the public equities portfolio manager at a single-family office in Houston, is helping his employer find a head of tax. “This is a highly strategic role for an experienced CPA who can advise principals and investment professionals on tax-efficient structuring, partnerships, real estate, transactions, and complex private investments—while ensuring flawless execution and compliance.”
Allocator Jobs is helping a $20 billion single-family office hire a vice president of portfolio analytics and reporting in New York City. This person will “build and maintain a world-class reporting and analytics function from the ground up with direct visibility to the Board, Trustees, and senior leadership” and needs technical expertise. It pays $405,000 and offers a long list of competitive benefits, including 401(k) matching of 150%, hybrid work (and catered food on in-office days), generous PTO, and summer Fridays.
KnowLedger, a data service provider that takes information from portfolio accounting systems, custodians and other sources and gets it into their customers’ general ledgers, is hiring an accounting data specialist with an investment twist. It’s a 1099 job that doesn’t offer benefits, but it is “100 percent remote with real flexibility. Work early, late, or around your life, as long as clients stay on track.”
Other Stuff
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I’ll be in…
Calgary this weekend.
New York City next week.
Akron in October.
