The first is that family offices could endanger the stability of the financial system. Combining very rich people, opacity and markets can be explosive. LTCM, a $100bn hedge fund backed by the super-rich, blew up in 1998, almost bringing down Wall Street. Scores of wealthy people fell for a Ponzi scheme run by Bernie Madoff that collapsed in 2008. Still, as things stand family offices do not look like the next disaster waiting to happen. They have debt equivalent to 17% of their assets, making them among the least leveraged participants in global markets. On balance, they may even be a stabilising influence. Their funds are usually deployed for decades, making them far less vulnerable to panics than banks and many hedge funds.
第一，家族辦公室可能危及金融系統穩定。超級富豪的結合會讓不透明度和市場會井噴。美國長期資本管理公司是由超級富豪出資的1000億美元的對沖基金，1998年瀕臨破產，幾乎拖垮整個華爾街。2008年，伯尼•馬多夫經營的龐氏騙局宣告破產，大量富豪因此財富受損。不過按目前情況來看，家族辦公室看起來并不像下一個潛在災難。其債務相當于其資產的17%，是全球市場杠桿率最低的參與者之一。總而言之，家族辦公室產生的影響較穩定。其基金配置通常已有幾十年，這使其遠沒有銀行和許多對沖基金那么容易受到恐慌的影響。
The second worry is that family offices could magnify the power of the wealthy over the economy. This is possible: were Bill Gates to invest exclusively in Turkey, he would own 65% of its stockmarket. But the aim is usually to diversify risk, not concentrate power, by taking capital from the original family business and putting it into a widely spread portfolio. The family-office industry is less concentrated than mainstream asset management, which a few firms such as BlackRock dominate. Compared with most fund managers, family offices have welcome habits, including a longer-term horizon and an appetite for startups.
第二個憂慮是，家族辦公室可能會放大富豪對經濟的影響。這種情況有可能出現：如果比爾·蓋茨只在土耳其投資，那么他的持股比可能達到65%。但投資目的通常是分散風險，而非集權，即從家族企業中獲取原始資金，并將其投入分布廣泛的投資組合。家族辦公室不如主流資產管理行業集中度高（貝萊德等少數幾家公司主宰著主流資產管理）。與大多數基金經理相比，家族辦公室的習慣更受歡迎，包括更長遠的眼光和對初創公司的興趣。
It is the third danger that has most bite: that family offices might have privileged access to information, deals and tax schemes, allowing them to outperform ordinary investors. So far there is little evidence for this. The average family office returned 16% in 2017 and 7% in 2016, according to Campden Wealth, a research firm, slightly lagging behind world stockmarkets. Nonetheless, tycoons are well connected. Family offices are becoming more complex—a third have at least two branches—making tax wheezes easier. Hungry brokers and banks are rolling out the red carpet and pitching deals with unlisted firms that are not available to ordinary investors. If all this did lead to an entrenched, unfair advantage, the effect, when compounded over decades, would make wealth inequality disastrously worse.
第三個危險殺傷力最大：家族理財室可能優先享有信息、交易以及稅務計劃獲取特權，這讓其勝過普通投資者。不過到目前為止，還沒有證據能夠證實這一點。據康頓財富研究公司的數據顯示，家族理財室的平均回報率2017年為16%，2016年為7%，略低于全球股市。盡管如此，但富豪們人脈很廣。家族辦公室正變得愈發復雜——三分之一的家族辦公室至少有兩個分支——為減輕稅收負擔。饑腸轆轆的券商和銀行正鋪上紅地毯，等待與普通投資者無法接觸的非上市公司進行交易。如果這一切確實導致產生根深蒂固而不公平的優勢，那么幾十年的影響疊加，會使得財富不平等災難性惡化。
The answer is vigilance and light. Most regulators, treasuries and tax authorities are beginners when it comes to dealing with family offices, but they need to ensure that rules on insider trading, the equal servicing of clients by dealers and parity of tax treatment are observed. And they should prod family offices with assets of over, say, $10bn to publish accounts detailing their workings. In a world that is suspicious of privilege, big family offices have an interest in boosting transparency. In return, they should be free to operate unmolested. They may even have something to teach hordes of flailing asset managers who serve ordinary investors, many of whom may look at their monthly fees and wish that they, too, could ditch the middlemen.
唯有以警惕和放松來應對。在和家族辦公室打交道方面，大多數監管機構、財政部門和稅務部門都是新手，但是需要確保家族辦公室遵守內幕交易、經銷商為客戶提供平等服務、同等稅收待遇方面的規則。且應敦促資產超過100億美元的家族辦公室公布詳細運作情況的賬目。作為回報，家族辦公室應可以不受干擾自由運作。家族辦公室甚至可以給一些為普通投資者服務的搖搖欲墜的資產管理公司傳經授道，畢竟很多資產管理公司看著每月產生的費用，也希望可以擺脫中間商。
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