For families spread across borders and generations, the work that decides a mandate now sits well outside the portfolio.
Switzerland holds the largest concentration of cross-border private wealth in the world, and Geneva sits at the centre of it. What arriving families want from an adviser has moved. A strong track record now gets a firm into the room. The mandates being won in 2026 turn on succession planning, cross-border coordination, family governance and charitable giving.
The numbers explain why. UBS surveyed 307 family offices for its Global Family Office Report 2026, with an average net worth of USD 2.7 billion. Two-thirds now run formal performance measurement processes. Only about a third have a defined succession plan for the family office itself, and a quarter have a structured way of preparing the next generation. Roughly USD 83 trillion is moving between generations worldwide.
Working out which firms actually do this work takes some digging. Almost every Swiss adviser now lists governance and succession on its website. A smaller number have hired dedicated wealth planners and built the fiduciary capability to deliver on the claim. The seven firms below have, each by a different route.
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Subscribe- Stonehage Fleming
Swiss offices, 13 Jurisdictions Worldwide · Formed 2015 · Multi-family office
Formed through the merger of Stonehage and Fleming Family & Partners, Stonehage Fleming advises more than 250 families across some thirteen jurisdictions, with Swiss offices supporting its European client base. Its Four Pillars of Capital framework treats intellectual, social and cultural capital as determinants of whether financial capital survives a transition. The firm covers family governance and succession, trust and fiduciary administration, philanthropic advisory, art management, and next-generation education, alongside investment management and in-house legal and tax capabilities. It became part of Corient in June 2026.
- Kaiser Partner
Vaduz and Zurich · Roots to the 1930s · Wealth Advisory and Private Bank
Kaiser Partner is family-owned and brings together a licensed private bank, a wealth advisory arm and an independent reporting and controlling specialist. Its work with families runs from the establishment and administration of foundations, trusts and holding structures in Liechtenstein and elsewhere, through to family seminars, next-generation education, relocation advice and philanthropy. The bank was the first in Liechtenstein to sign the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Banking and has been a PRI signatory since 2009.
- 1875 Finance
Geneva · Founded 2006 · Multi-Family Office and Independent Asset Manager
Founded by five former private bankers, 1875 Finance is among the larger independent players in French-speaking Switzerland, with more than CHF 13 billion under management and further offices including Zurich and Luxembourg. It is FINMA-regulated and runs an open-architecture model across private clients, institutional clients and a distinct multi-family office. That last unit handles the administrative substance many families underestimate, from financial planning and legal and tax coordination through to accounting, controlling and consolidated reporting across multiple banking relationships on a defined schedule.
- Fox & Murphy
Geneva · Private office · Families with International Interests
Fox & Murphy provides private office support from Geneva to families whose interests extend across more than one jurisdiction. The firm coordinates succession planning, cross-border arrangements and charitable giving alongside the wider administrative requirements of a family’s affairs, drawing on specialist advisers and external counsel where a matter calls for them. Each engagement is shaped by the family rather than by a fixed service menu, and every requirement runs through a single point of contact. The firm’s stated aim is to have frameworks agreed while circumstances still allow for deliberation.
- Bedrock
Geneva, London and Monaco · Founded 2004 · Multi-Family Office
Bedrock manages roughly CHF 7 billion for a deliberately limited circle of families and institutions. Alongside portfolio management and private markets access, it runs family governance services and a development programme for next-generation wealth holders. Bedrock was named Best Private Investment Office / Multi-Family Office in Switzerland at the WealthBriefing Swiss Awards in 2025 and again in 2026, with judges citing the breadth of its support for families beyond individual investments. Corient agreed to acquire the business in April 2026.
- FINAD
Zurich, Vienna and Hamburg · Founded 1976 · Multi-Family Office
One of Switzerland’s older independent multi-family offices, FINAD remains wholly owned by its managing partners. Around forty staff serve entrepreneurial families, foundations and private clients across the German-speaking market. Wealth planning sits at the centre of the offering, covering strategic asset allocation, international tax planning, inheritance and succession questions and the structuring of larger estates. The firm expanded its partnership in 2026 with appointments in both wealth planning and private markets.
- Capitalium
Geneva and Neuchâtel · Founded 2016 · Independent Wealth Manager
Capitalium is owned by its founding partners and works with Swiss and international clients. Its proposition separates the financial and non-financial sides of the mandate. Discretionary and advisory portfolio management sits on one side, while wealth engineering, succession and tax planning, family governance and next-generation transition support sit on the other. The latter runs through a dedicated arm aimed at engaging younger family members in questions of transmission early.
The Common Thread
Two things link these seven firms. The first is coordination, meaning one point of accountability across trustees, tax counsel, banks and operating businesses in several countries, so that every adviser works from the same picture. The second is preparation, meaning governance and succession frameworks agreed while the founder is present and the questions remain hypothetical.
Philanthropy has become the setting where both get tested. Practitioners describe family giving as one of the few places a dispersed family can practise collective decision-making at low stakes before attempting it at high ones. Geneva is unusually well equipped for that conversation. The Geneva Centre for Philanthropy counted close to 1,400 foundations in the canton, holding assets above CHF 25 billion and distributing several billion francs in grants each year, and the canton recorded Switzerland’s highest net foundation growth in 2025.
The Shift Underway
Two shifts look likely from here. Consolidation will keep widening the distance between global platforms and owner-managed boutiques. Corient’s purchases of Stonehage Fleming, Stanhope Capital and Bedrock have already moved three well-known names across that line, and the choice between scale and independence is becoming an active decision for families. Alongside that, governance and next-generation work is separating out from investment management into something families scope, contract and pay for on its own terms. Both trends favour Geneva. The city’s standing has always rested on coordination and long horizons more than on any single year’s returns, which is precisely the ground this work occupies.
