Passing on wealth is rarely the hard part. Making it last is.
Wealth fragments. Structures that suited one generation don't fit the next. Decisions get made in isolation, taxed heavily, or left until they turn into disputes. Values that took a lifetime to build are lost.
This is the work a multi-family office exists to do: holding the long view across generations, preparing the next one rather than simply providing for it, and making sure what you've built passes on intact, and on your terms.
The families AES works with have usually been advised before. By private banks. By firms they inherited rather than chose. By advisers who were never quite working for the family alone.
They come to AES for something rarer: a genuinely independent fiduciary, with the standing to coordinate an entire financial life and the discretion to handle it.
AES was the first firm in the region to meet the fiduciary standard, and remains the only one certified to it. When the stakes are this high, that distinction matters.
This is considered, long-term work. It's built on trust earned over years, not a relationship that starts with a sale.
Wealth that spans countries needs structures designed for more than one of them. The right trust or foundation can protect assets, simplify succession, and make sure wealth passes to the next generation cleanly, without unnecessary tax, delay or dispute.
AES structures trusts and foundations for international families, built around where your family lives now, where it may live next, and the laws of every jurisdiction your wealth touches. Held to a fiduciary standard, and designed to hold up across generations and borders alike.
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A private bank answers to its shareholders. A fund manager answers to its firm. However capable they are, their interests and yours are not the same, and over a long relationship, that gap costs you.
A fiduciary multi-family office is different by design. It's funded by the family, works only for the family, and earns nothing from selling you anything. Every decision is made for one reason: because it's right for you.
That single alignment of interest is the foundation everything else is built on.
Significant wealth rarely sits in one place. It spreads across countries, currencies, structures and a collection of advisers, each capable, none responsible for the whole picture.
AES becomes the centre of that picture.
For the first time, someone holds the whole picture. And that someone works for you.
When a family's wealth spans several countries, structures and generations, the pieces drift apart unless someone holds the whole picture. A family office does that job. It acts as the family's chief financial officer, chief investment officer and chief learning officer, and coordinates every lawyer, tax adviser, trustee and private bank involved.
The AES guide explains what a family office is, the fifteen service areas it can cover, the benefits it brings and how to decide where one should be based. It's written for founders and family leaders deciding whether to use, or set up, a family office.
Multi-family office services cover the full range of a family's financial life, brought together under one strategy.
That includes:
Each of these exists elsewhere, in pieces, sold separately. What matters is holding them together, and keeping them working toward the same purpose.
A multi-family office will hold more of your family's financial life than any other adviser. These are the nine questions worth putting to any firm you're considering, AES included. Each of these questions is answered in the FAQs below, so you can see how AES would respond before you put them to any firm.
A relationship like this begins with trust, and trust begins with a conversation.
There's no questionnaire and no obligation. Simply a private, confidential discussion about your family, what you've built, and what you want it to become, so together we can understand whether AES is the right firm to help you hold it.
A multi-family office provides comprehensive management of a wealthy family's entire financial life, coordinating investment, succession, governance, tax, philanthropy and reporting under one strategy, for several families rather than just one.
Where individual specialists each handle a single piece, a multi-family office holds the whole picture and takes responsibility for how all of it fits together. It's designed for established families whose wealth has grown complex enough that no single adviser, bank or lawyer can see or serve the entirety of it.
AES provides multi-family office services as the only certified fiduciary in the region, answerable only to the families it serves.
A single-family office serves one family exclusively, while a multi-family office provides the same depth of service to several families, sharing the infrastructure and expertise between them.
A single-family office offers total exclusivity, but at considerable cost, and it requires the family to build and run an entire operation themselves. A multi-family office gives a family access to the same breadth of expertise, coordination and independent oversight, without the expense and burden of building it alone.
For most established families, it delivers the focus of a single-family office with the strength and efficiency of a shared one.
Multi-family office services suit established international families whose wealth and affairs have outgrown what a private bank or a single adviser can manage well.
Typically these are families with substantial, often multi-generational wealth, held across more than one country, spanning investments, property, business interests and family structures that all interact.
In Dubai and the wider region, this increasingly includes internationally mobile families with assets and interests in several jurisdictions at once. The common thread isn't only the size of the wealth, but its complexity, and the recognition that no one in the current arrangement is responsible for the whole of it.
Established families use a multi-family office because, as wealth grows more complex, the most important job, looking at the whole, is usually the one nobody is doing.
A multi-family office fills that role.
It coordinates investment management, succession and estate planning, family governance, philanthropy, trustee services, tax and structuring, and consolidated reporting, bringing every part of a family's financial life together under one strategy.
Each of these exists elsewhere, handled in pieces by separate firms. The value of a multi-family office is in holding them together, keeping them working toward the same purpose, and ensuring that decisions in one area account for their effect on every other.
A private bank answers to its shareholders and earns from the products it sells; a fiduciary multi-family office is funded by the family and works only for the family. That single difference shapes everything.
However capable a private bank is, its interests and the family's are not the same, and over a long relationship, that gap has a cost. A fiduciary multi-family office has no product to push and no commission to chase; every decision is made because it is right for the family.
This independence is why many established families move from private banking to a fiduciary model, and it is the foundation everything else is built on.
A fiduciary multi-family office is paid a transparent fee by the family it serves. It takes no commissions or product incentives, so its income never depends on what it recommends. AES works on this basis.
A family should look for a firm held to a fiduciary standard, with credentials that are independently verified, and the depth to cover investment, tax, legal and trust matters across borders.
AES is the only certified investment fiduciary in AMEA, and was the first international specialist in the UK to obtain Corporate Chartered status. Investment, cross-border and tax planning expertise sits within AES. Where a family needs specialist legal, trust or local tax advice, AES selects qualified professionals in the relevant jurisdictions and remains accountable for coordinating their work.
A multi-family office sits at the centre of a family's affairs and coordinates the specialists already in place, rather than replacing them.
It brings the lawyers, accountants, trustees and bankers into one connected strategy, makes sure their advice works towards the family's objectives, and fills the gaps between them. The family keeps the advisers it trusts, with one point of contact, one firm accountable for how their work fits together, and a single consolidated view of everything it owns.
The work starts with purpose: what the wealth is for, who it's meant to serve, and what the family wants to pass on.
The plan follows from that purpose, and the portfolio follows from the plan. As circumstances change, each decision is tested against those objectives, so the plan stays connected to the family's goals and legacy over time. AES describes this order as Purpose, Plan, Portfolio.
When wealth sits across trusts, companies and personal accounts, each structure is often invested in isolation, with duplicated holdings, inconsistent risk and costs nobody has added up. A multi-family office sets one investment policy for the whole family, then applies it to each structure according to its purpose, time horizon and tax position. Consolidated reporting shows how each part performs and what it contributes to the whole.
Yes. A multi-family office can take on day-to-day administration, including paying invoices and taxes, bookkeeping, cash flow management and record keeping. Consolidated reporting brings every asset, including property, art and other non-bankable assets, into one regularly updated view. The family stays fully informed without having to run the process itself.
A multi-family office protects wealth across generations by treating succession as an ongoing discipline, not a one-time event. Passing on wealth is rarely the hard part; making it last is.
Wealth fragments, structures that suited one generation stop fitting the next, decisions get made in isolation or taxed heavily, and the values behind the wealth can slip away.
A multi-family office holds the long view: coordinating succession and estate planning, establishing family governance so decisions and relationships stay sound as the family grows, and preparing the next generation rather than simply providing for it. The aim is to ensure what a family has built passes on intact, and on its own terms.
Trusts and foundations are among the most important tools for protecting and passing on wealth that spans more than one country.
The right structure can safeguard assets, simplify succession, and ensure wealth passes cleanly to the next generation without unnecessary tax, delay or dispute. For internationally mobile families, structures also have to work across borders, built around where the family lives now, where it may live next, and the laws of every jurisdiction the wealth touches.
A multi-family office structures trusts and foundations as part of the whole strategy, rather than in isolation, and holds them to a fiduciary standard designed to last across generations and jurisdictions alike.
There's no standard answer. The right amount and timing depend on a family's values, the readiness of the next generation and the laws of every country the wealth touches. A multi-family office helps parents work out what the wealth should do for their children, then structures the transfer through lifetime gifts, trusts, foundations or wills so it passes on clearly and without unnecessary tax. The decision stays with the family; the role of the multi-family office is to make sure it's an informed one.
Readiness is built over years. A multi-family office can work with the next generation directly, through mentoring, financial education matched to each person, and gradual involvement in family decisions. Because the multi-family office is a third party, younger family members often find it easier to ask questions openly than they would within the family.
A multi-family office helps a family put governance in place that suits its size, values and stage. That can include a family constitution, a family council, regular assemblies or retreats, and agreed arrangements for succession in a family business. It can also facilitate family meetings, giving each generation a voice and keeping relationships sound as the family grows.
