January presents many with the valuable psychological line they need to step over and begin a new annual cycle with the best foot forward. This can be very literal, with the first month of the year bringing the usual bump in health club memberships and resolutions to exercise more frequently. There’s excitement for sports fans, who get to look forward to a whole new year of major sporting events: the Superbowl is around the corner and new seasons for motorsports, professional tennis and much more are about to get started, plus there’s the added bonus this year of a Summer Olympic Games that will be held in Paris from late July.

For the family office industry, a new year means a new cycle of family office reports published by the various institutions, predominately global investment banks and professional services multinationals, complimented by the growing number of smaller, industry-focused entities. As the prominence of the family office world grows, so does the proliferation of reports and pieces published - just keeping track of them has become a task in itself.

The purpose behind most of these reports is to provide a useful summary on the state of the industry, to add some context and insight to what is still largely a private area of business with little shared resources, and many of these reports are certainly useful in this undertaking. Taking a break from the day-to-day to see the wood from the trees and read what these larger surveys uncover makes total sense for anyone in the industry, and it’s certainly helpful that they’re publicly available, despite the knowledge that the marketing value the institutions gain from compiling and sharing these reports is clearly a significant motivation.

Studying the data shared in these reports does allow for some general benchmarking, enabling family office peers to compare their financial metrics and performance against the reported figures and get perspective on how they’re structured in relation to those surveyed. This is certainly helpful for family offices not actively part of organisations that provide ongoing access to such insights, thus most likely to keep an eye out for the more notable reports published each year.

In that regard, there are a handful that stand out from the larger institutions. UBS publishes an annual Global Family Office Report as well as the Global Wealth Report, which started as a Credit Suisse initiative and will be in its 15th year in 2024, and while not focused around family offices delivers valuable insights on wealth developments. It remains to be seen if UBS will resurrect the Single Family Office Index that Credit Suisse launched in 2022.

Citi Private Bank publishes their Global Family Office Survey Insights report and Goldman Sachs has their Family Office Investment Insights Report, and while these as well as BlackRock’s family office report touch on broader issues within the family office industry, it’s no surprise that they share more than just a predilection for the word ‘global’ in there titles: the common focus is squarely on wealth management, the area where these companies derive their revenue.

Julius Baer shares their insights on the world of family offices in a Family Barometer report, developed in conjunction with PWC, and provides slightly more expansive coverage beyond the financial side, with last year’s report focused deeper around engaging with and understanding what the next generation of wealth owner was looking for. Their Global Wealth & Lifestyle report complements this, giving wealth owners data around changes in living costs and high-net-worth consumer spending.

As new year of sports promises to unfold with plenty of surprise results and unexpected news, the same is unlikely to be said of what this year’s institutional family office industry reports will share. The industry moves gradually, so expect similar concerns around key themes like geopolitical uncertainty, interest rates and the continued embrace of private markets, and reported updates on asset allocation to reflect this. More information around family office structures, processes and operating costs would improve these extensive reports, though last year’s inaugural Global Family Office Compensation Benchmark report from KPMG and Agreus did deliver data on this.

It would be interesting in 2024 to see if there is reflection on previous predictions, a simple but useful analysis that many forecasts seem to ignore, and if there are deeper insights into areas highlighted as concerns within several of the reports themselves, notably the lack of an adequate succession plans, a shortage of best practices in place for risk management and the need for more comprehensive family governance framework.

This is an area where industry research entities like Campden Wealth fill the gap, as they publish a number of annual in-depth reports on family offices with scope that covers these areas, and also where niche surveys play a role, like those undertaken by law firm, Dentons, who this year will focus on family office risks. A better understanding of risks, including the expanding spectrum of non-financial risks seems to be a topic that is top-of-mind for many family offices this coming year. And of course there are many more, and in growing numbers as the industry gains momentum and visibility each year.

In addition to what these family office reports focus on, it’s worth considering how they’re delivered and what could be enhanced. How we consume media and information has changed yet most of these annual reports are in static format: perhaps it’s time for consideration around the PDF being updated to an interactive format that can let users better engage with data and content. The standard length being rather extensive, this could be one way to remove the clutter for an audience that doesn’t have time to sit and read from start to finish yet wants more than an executive summary level of insight.

Perhaps also, this new year is the chance to evolve not just how the larger institutions report their findings from a singular perspective, with updated answers to the same questions previously asked, but for them to work together with other entities across the family office industry on collaborative reports that bring a wider view, and deliver a more holistic perspective to their audience.