Steven Cohen may be about to join a new level among the elite money managers handling tens of trillions as a condition of his $1.8 billion civil settlement.
Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors reportedly will not manage the money of outsiders.
Instead, it may become what is commonly referred to in the investment community as a “family office.”
That may sound like something a dentist or a doctor might call his place of business, but it’s not even close. Single Family Offices (SFO) and Multi-Family Offices (MFO) are vehicles through which the very wealthy handle their own finances in a very private manner.
With more than $50 trillion in assets under management, there are very large players in the field.
HSBC, Northern Trust and Bessemer Trust handle some 6,000 family offices.
Cohen may be losing his management fees and percentage of the profits that generated billions in income for him over the last 20 years, but he can breathe a sigh of relief over getting less scrutiny from financial regulators when he files to become a family office.
The private-office setup will presumably have far fewer than the 1,000 people now working at SAC Capital.