Inside a billionaire’s family office: Navy Seals, yacht captains
This article is by Margaret Collins. It originally appeared in Bloomberg Brief | Family Office.
Managing the life of Sergey Brin is big business.
Through Bayshore Global Management, the Google co-founder has hired former bankers and philanthropy experts to help manage his estimated $33 billion fortune. He’s employed a former Navy SEAL and SWAT team veteran for security, and a yacht captain to handle his aquatic endeavors. A fitness coordinator, a photographer and archivist help run his life.
Bayshore, based in Los Altos, California, provides a glimpse into the services family offices bestow upon the wealthy beyond investing and accounting.
There are now more than 14,600 families with at least $100 million in assets globally, up 42 percent since 2008, according to the Boston Consulting Group. Many of these have set up their own offices to help manage investments and day-to-day lives.
Family offices serving the world’s billionaires usually employ at least 50 people, with staff across multiple teams including executive, administrative and investment groups, according to London-
based researcher Campden Wealth, which started collecting the data last year.
Vulcan, the Seattle-based company created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his sister Jody Allen, has more than 500 people. The family office features an in-house media company, a 17-member team managing a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio and a division that’s working on space travel. Vulcan is also currently hiring a chief investment officer and wildlife conservation expert among other positions, according to its website.
Allen, who has an estimated net worth of $17 billion as of Aug. 24, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, named Vulcan after the Roman god of fire. He’s also a Star Trek fan.
Bayshore gets its name from the location of Google’s headquarters, an area in California known as North Bayshore. It’s existed since at least 2006, two years after Google, the world’s largest search engine, had its initial public offering.
The company’s employees have been recruited from Google, Goldman Sachs Group, Deutsche Bank and other family offices, according to LinkedIn profiles that list Bayshore as their employer. It has employed at least 47 people according to Department of Labor filings. These include a chief of staff and manager of the family’s New York City home, who oversaw construction, recruited domestic staff and provided personal shopping.
Brin also owns Passerelle Investment, a real estate firm. It’s bought properties in Los Altos to help revitalize the town for businesses and families, according to Passerelle’s website.
Representatives for Bayshore declined to comment.
Brin emigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union as a child with his family. He also runs the Brin Wojcicki Foundation with his wife, Anne, that disburses charitable donations and supports human rights.
Brin was the 15th richest person in the world as of Aug. 24, according to the Bloomberg ranking. Controlling a fortune of that size requires professional security. Bayshore brought in the former Navy SEAL to provide protection, according to a LinkedIn profile. A former U.S. Secret Service agent directed security programs, and a former SWAT team operator oversees the family’s properties and emergency procedures.
Some of the largest family offices have operation centers to monitor people and property, said Christopher Falkenberg, a former U.S. Secret Service agent and founder of New York-based Insite Security that provides protection services to clients such as family offices.
There are layers of personnel including former military and law enforcement experts who are responsible for locks on doors and gates, background checks on staff, and managing travel and aircraft security, Falkenberg said.
They don’t come cheap. A security director who’s a former FBI agent can command at least $200,000 a year, he said. That can be double a typical salary working for the government.
Salaries at family offices vary widely, said Natasha Pearl, chief executive officer of Aston Pearl, which serves single-family offices that have at least $400 million. Pearl’s New York-based firm has helped families hire cybersecurity experts, find college advisers and create procedures for staff at multiple residences.
Private chefs can command salaries from $40,000 to as much as $200,000 a year with full benefits depending on whether they have top restaurant experience and have worked with other wealthy families, Pearl said. College-adviser fees, a growing area, can range from $5,000 to $25,000.
“It’s not like the ‘blue book’ where you look up chief risk officers or chefs and there are standard comp rates,” she said. “It’s a very fragmented market.”