Our Services

Silk & Vines takes responsibility for the investment side of a family's balance sheet without acting as the manager of the money. Portfolios held with private banks and discretionary managers, along with specialist fund allocations, are consolidated and reviewed on a regular cycle against the family's own objectives. Where a manager needs replacing or the terms of an engagement need renegotiating, we lead the process and remain the point of instruction thereafter.

Manager selection is handled openly. Fee terms are negotiated on the family's behalf. Performance is measured against benchmarks agreed with the principal. Where private investments and direct positions form part of the estate, they are considered alongside the liquid portfolio so the total exposure is understood in one place.

Many of the households Silk & Vines serves hold their wealth through corporate vehicles established over years for commercial reasons and for reasons of family or succession. We administer these structures at the ownership level, working alongside the fiduciaries who hold the underlying entities. Board matters and intra-group flows, along with the working relationship with the family's corporate service providers, all pass through the office.

Where a structure needs to be reviewed or reworked to accommodate a new generation or a new commercial arrangement, we lead the conversation with the relevant fiduciary counsel and see the work through. The principal is kept close to the substance without having to hold the operational detail.

Where a family wishes to formalise how decisions are made across generations, Silk & Vines supports the process without becoming the decision-maker. This includes preparing agendas and papers for family meetings, keeping an internal record of resolutions and helping principals think through the arrangements that will apply as roles change over time.

The pace of this work is set by the family. Some households arrive with governance already well-established and want the office to maintain it. Others use the office to build a working framework for the first time, at whatever pace feels right to them. Either mode is familiar.

A single reporting standard is applied across every bank, manager and asset the family holds. Statements arrive in different formats and on different cycles, often in more than one currency; we bring them onto one basis so a principal can read their position at a settled cadence and know the numbers reconcile.

Reports are prepared for the principal and, where the family wishes, for the next generation and for the professional advisers who need them. Format and frequency are agreed with the family and then held steady. Changes to the reporting standard are made deliberately and infrequently.

Risk is assessed across the family's affairs as a whole. Concentration in a single position, currency, counterparty, or country is monitored at the estate level. Insurance arrangements, corporate exposures and the interaction between investment and operating interests are reviewed on a regular cycle.

The output is a working document that a principal can read in a sitting. It is revisited at set intervals and whenever a material event warrants it: the sale of an operating business, a change in family circumstances, or a significant reallocation of capital.

Where a family wishes to support charitable causes, we hold that part of the estate together in the same way as the rest. Focus areas are agreed with the principal and set down clearly at the outset. Commitments are structured so they can be maintained over time and the working relationship with each organisation is held through the office.

Philanthropic activity is brought onto the same reporting cadence as the wider position. Grants and programme commitments are tracked alongside the family's other exposures, so the principal can see what has been done, what is still in train and how it sits against the priorities they have set.

Alongside the mandates it holds for its principals, Silk & Vines maintains a small number of charitable relationships of its own.

Every family Silk & Vines works with has its own tax, banking, fiduciary and investment advisers, most of them long-established. Our role is to engage them on the family's behalf, hold their work to a common standard and give the principal one senior counterpart across all of it.

Where a new adviser is required, we identify candidates, run the selection and negotiate the engagement. Where an existing adviser is doing good work, we keep them in place and manage the working relationship on the family's behalf. The office does not compete with the family's external advisers and we hold no economic interest in the providers we recommend.