legal

As the appetite for venture capital investing increases among family offices, it is important to take a closer look at the origins and structural differences between a family office and venture capital fund to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses in the context of risk in private capital technology investments.

In 1925, Vincent Massey, the scion of one of the wealthiest families in Canada, did something that Ed Rogers today would find unthinkable.

He quit.

Massey (pictured below right) was the fourth-generation heir to his family’s Massey-Harris farm equipment company, then already well on its way to becoming Canada’s first truly global firm. Despite this, Massey decided that his future lay not in tractors, but in public service and philanthropy. He later became governor general of Canada.

When our institutional clients want to talk with us about return-seeking strategies, the conversation most often turns to private markets. No surprise. An increasing amount of capital formation and access to growth and income opportunities occur in the private markets.

Family businesses often grow in an unstructured way, leading to a culture of informality. As a result, basic employment law documents can get overlooked and family members are not issued with employment contracts or subject to formal policies. This can leave the business exposed when issues arise as neither the business nor the family member have a ‘rule book’ to follow.