When A Family Office Becomes A Powerful Investor
Goldman Sachs is treating family offices less like private clients and more like institutional investors. Through Apex, its dedicated family-office platform, the bank connects some of the world’s wealthiest families with private transactions, IPOs, M&A opportunities and specialist expertise from across the firm. The shift reflects how rapidly the role of the family office has expanded. What was once primarily an administrative and wealth-management structure is increasingly becoming an active investor with the capital, access and patience to compete for deals alongside private-equity firms, venture-capital funds and hedge funds.
That change creates a governance question that is easier to overlook than the investment opportunity itself. A family office may gain institutional influence before it has developed institutional controls. It may employ experienced investment professionals, participate in complex private-market transactions and take board seats in portfolio companies while still relying on informal approval, concentrated authority and family relationships when decisions are made. The larger and more direct the investment operation becomes, the harder it is to justify that gap.
From wealth administration to deal-making
The global family-office sector has grown quickly. Family offices managed an estimated $5.5 trillion in 2024, and the total could rise to $9.5 trillion by 2030. Half of today’s family offices have been established since 2012, driven partly by a new generation of entrepreneurs who accumulated wealth rapidly through technology companies, private-market exits and large IPOs.
Their investment preferences differ from those of many traditional private clients. Around 70 percent of family offices now make direct investments, with even greater participation among families managing more than $500 million. Rather than allocating exclusively through funds, they increasingly invest in companies themselves, join transactions with other families or participate through co-investment structures.
Becoming a powerful investor is no longer unusual for a large family office. Building an institution capable of using that power responsibly is the more demanding achievement.
