Family office succession planning for direct investments
Family office succession planning is deciding who will own the family's wealth and who will run the family office once the current generation steps back. The legal and tax side, from wills to the family constitution, belongs to lawyers and tax advisors, and this guide does not cover it.
It covers the part that usually stays in one person's head: the reasons behind each direct investment the family made or turned down, and the point at which it would sell.
What a succession plan usually covers
Most plans have three layers. Ownership decides who holds what and through which structure. Governance decides how the family takes decisions: a family council, an investment committee, a family constitution. The people layer decides who leads the family office next and how heirs are prepared.
UBS's surveys point to succession and to preparing heirs as the gaps, even as governance becomes more formal. UBS asked 307 family offices in more than 30 markets between January 22 and March 30, 2026: 60% already operate with an investment committee, but only 35% have a defined succession plan for the family office itself and 27% have a structured process to prepare their heirs (UBS, Global Family Office Report 2026, May 28, 2026, accessed November 3, 2026). A year earlier, 53% of the 317 family offices surveyed had a wealth succession plan for family members, and among those, only 26% consulted the next generation about it from the outset (UBS, Global Family Office Report 2025, May 21, 2025, accessed November 3, 2026).
The part nobody writes down
A stake passes to the next generation through the legal structure. The reasoning behind it only passes if someone wrote it down while the people who decided were still there.
If the family uses a wealth consolidation tool, it already shows what the family holds and what each holding is worth. The record we describe here complements it with what that tool was not built to keep: the thesis behind each direct investment and the deals the family declined. It also keeps the conditions under which the family would change course.
Without that record, an heir who asks why a deal was turned down ten years ago gets an anecdote or nothing. With it, the answer comes with its date and the name of whoever decided.
What to write down for each direct investment
Seven entries cover most of what an heir will ask. Write them for the companies the family holds today first, and for every new opportunity from now on.
| Entry | What it records | Why the next generation needs it |
|---|---|---|
| Family thesis | Where the family invests and the reasons it discards a deal, with the date of each version | To tell a change of thesis from a one-off exception |
| Each yes | The reason and the evidence behind it, with its date | To judge the company against what was expected of it |
| Each no | The reason to discard, written when it was decided | To avoid reopening the same deal without new facts |
| Follow-up criteria | The few figures that say whether the company is on plan, with their source | To read the company the way the family read it |
| Exit or kill criteria | The conditions under which the family would sell or stop funding, set before they happen | So the decision follows a rule the family agreed in advance |
| Who decided | The person or role, and the date of each decision | To know whom to ask, while that person is still around |
| Reports to the council | What the family council was told, and when | To see which decisions the family as a whole endorsed |
Each entry is worth only as much as its evidence: a document or a figure with its date. When there is none, mark the entry as declared rather than verified.
Our view, from the method we build FounderFold on: of the seven, the exit conditions matter most to an heir, because they are the hardest to reconstruct afterwards. Write them before the money goes in, with a metric, a threshold, a date and the person who decides. The kill criteria generator drafts them in the browser, without sign-up.
A fictional example
Everything in this example is invented to show the format.
A family office has held 30% of a regional cold-storage company since 2019. Its record reads: Thesis version 3 (2018): logistics and food; tickets of €5 million to €15 million; ten years or more. Reason for the yes: two anchor customers on contract until 2027, audited accounts. Follow-up: occupancy and EBITDA margin, from the quarterly board package. Exit condition: if occupancy stays under 70% for four quarters, the investment committee reviews whether to sell. Decided by the investment committee, June 2019.
Next to it sits a declined deal from 2021: Reason to discard: the founder would not accept a board seat for the family. Decided by the head of the family office. An heir reading both understands the family's rules without asking anyone.
How to hand over the record, step by step
Start while the people who decided can still answer questions.
- Write down the current thesis with the generation in charge, including the reasons to discard a deal.
- Bring in the companies the family holds today, each with the reason it was bought and the figures that show whether it is on plan.
- Reconstruct the main yes and no decisions of the past. What has no evidence is recorded as declared, never filled in from memory as fact.
- Agree the exit conditions for each company, with the person who decides when one is met.
- Give the next generation access to read the record first, and to edit it once they sit on the committee.
- Report to the family council from the record at every meeting. That way the reports never drift from the decisions.
Where FounderFold fits
FounderFold is the agentic OS for building new businesses, and a family office uses it to keep that record. Each direct investment is a running project, added at the stage it has reached. Its figures carry their source. Its kill criteria show as No risk, Watch or Triggered, and a person decides what happens, with a reason. Each opportunity has its record and, if it is discarded, the reason in writing. The History of the portfolio shows who decided what and why, with the date.
For the council, the board PDF is calculated from the records without AI, and flags anything not verified. Heirs and external advisors can join as readers or editors. AI agents answer from the records with citations and never say whether to invest; FounderFold is software, not legal, tax or investment advice. See how it works for family offices, how companies are followed and what the board report contains.
Questions people ask
When should a family office start succession planning?
While the people who made the decisions can still explain them. The legal side has its own timing, set by the family's advisors; the record of decisions can start this week with the companies the family holds today.
What does a family office investment committee do?
It reviews each opportunity against the family's thesis and decides yes or no, with the reason written down. For each investment it approves, it also sets the follow-up figures and the exit conditions, and it reports its decisions to the family council. Who sits on it and how it votes is for the family to decide.
Who should keep the record of investment decisions?
Whoever runs the investment process day to day, usually the head of the family office. In larger offices, the secretary of the investment committee. Each decision should keep the name or role of whoever took it and the date.
Does the next generation need to sit on the investment committee?
That is the family's call. Reading the record is a lower-cost first step: an heir who has read why each yes and each no happened arrives at the committee with context.
What if past decisions were never written down?
Reconstruct the main ones with the people who took them, and mark each as declared until there is a document behind it. A partial record with honest gaps is more useful to an heir than none.