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family office profiles

Media offices

June 5, 2013

On the back of a recent partnership, the man who now heads up LGL Partners and Forbes Family Trust – two family offices founded by media moguls – talks to Campden about his plans for the future and the possibility of a merger.

As wealthy families go, the two behind LGL Partners and Forbes Family Trust seem pretty different. Yes, both might owe much of their fortunes to the media industry – the Forbes family to publishing and the Lenfests to cable television – but at first glance they appear to take very different approaches to wealth.

The art of the office

November 29, 2012

The family office of Theophilus Danjuma – one of Africa’s wealthiest individuals – comes with plenty of compliance headaches. Campden speaks to its principal about investing – and why he wants more regulation.

The Danjumas are not your ordinary wealthy family. Whenever their family office wants to work with a new bank, its chief executive Geoffroy Dedieu sends over “at least” two arch-level files of information on the family. And that’s just to do the “smell test”, before due diligence is even considered. Then, so long as the smell test is okay, it’ll take another four to six months before the relationship finally gets off the ground.

Sugar daddy: Taking on the bittersweet legacy of Tate & Lyle

September 17, 2012

The Lyle family owes its wealth to sugar. CampdenFB meets the heir tasked with keeping the family fortune sweet.

Of all the ways to burn money, starting your own car company must be one of the most sure-fire strategies. That is exactly what Oliver and Philip Lyle – scions of the Tate & Lyle sugar-producing business – did back in the 1920s. At least, they provided the cash while a former Royal Horse Artillery captain- turned-boat designer built the cars.

French lessons: The family business world according to Ernest-Antoine Seilliere

June 14, 2012

The story of French investment group Wendel is as good as any case study of a family business converting to an investment group. CampdenFB speaks to Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, the group’s charismatic chairman.

Ernest-Antoine Seilliere doesn’t like rogue family shareholders. In fact, the chairman of Wendel, one of France’s pre-eminent investment groups, was so incensed about the issue that he wrote a book about it.

The family office with James Bond links

November 10, 2011

Fleming Family & Partners is one of the biggest family offices in Europe, but it's had a couple of tough years. David Bain reports on how it's now faring.

Unsurprisingly, the actor Daniel Craig, who plays the current James Bond, doesn’t disclose exactly what he does with the small fortune he makes from playing the iconic British secret agent. But if he’s looking for some financial planning, or even some interesting investing options, he might consider looking a bit closer to the character he plays – or at least the person who created that character.