US Family Offices Merge, Form $10 Billion Firm

This news service can exclusively reveal a coming together of two family offices. We talk to one of the major figures about the rationale for the combination and how it was executed. It reflects on different approaches at a time when private equity involvement has been a regular force.

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 (see a link to the firm)
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 (main picture),
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 [private equity] 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
(pictured below), 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.”