Yesterday morning, Modus published an article about Beatrice Advisors, a multifamily office created in June by entrepreneur and philanthropist Christina Lewis, the daughter of the trailblazing Black businessman Reginald Lewis, that hired two investment team members with experience coveted by family offices.
Mervin Burton, whose previous work includes managing a $4 billion endowment portfolio at Carnegie Corporation, is now a senior partner and will oversee research, asset allocation, and manager selection at Beatrice.
Peter Lupoff has also become a senior partner at Beatrice. He was a portfolio manager at Marty Whitman’s Third Avenue Management and Izzy Englander’s Millennium Management, started his own investment firm, and served as the CIO of a $12 billion investment consultant before forming his family office (which is largely folding into Beatrice).
They will work closely with Meredith Bowen, Beatrice's president and CIO, and use their experience as institutional allocators to build and manage family portfolios.
The growing leadership ranks will enable the new multifamily office to fill in service gaps that Lewis experienced as a client of other firms and build “the best of what the endowments and foundations do, in terms of their very sophisticated, robust approach,” Burton told Modus.
Many wealth managers say this, but what exactly does that mean?
With Beatrice’s open architecture platform, everything is on the table, whether that is ETFs, private funds by asset managers big and small, and more. Of course, a lot of wealth managers have the same optionality. But many begin with a set of model portfolios that are too limiting for a family office. Beatrice says its commitment to building a portfolio for each client, its talent and its breadth of investment options will differentiate it.
There have also never been as many choices for investors heavily allocated to alternative investments. Asset managers are increasingly creating more strategies and funds for retail investors (they estimate that 13% of their assets under management come from the retail channel, but they expect it to climb to 23% in the next three years). Those products could also prove helpful to family offices, too.
“In many cases, we won't use a lot of [the funds]. But we like seeing them out there because our solutions are so customized; there might be situations where it makes sense for a particular client,” Burton said. For example, he pointed to private credit interval funds and traditional closed-end funds. From the growing pool of private credit interval funds, there are likely more opportunities to invest in the asset class for clients who want better liquidity.
Beatrice believes other family offices will want to fold some or all of their operations into it, as Lupoff has.
“We see people who may have a single-family office, have done it for a certain period of time and have seen the pros and the cons, and will want to move to a multifamily office, absolutely,” Lewis said.
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Other News
- Nate Anderson, one of the last prominent short sellers, said Wednesday that he is shutting down Hindenburg Research to better his health and spend more time with his fiancée and child. The firm was pretty good at what it did. Hindenburg found and drew attention to malfeasance and manipulation (authorities paid close attention to its reports). Anderson told The Wall Street Journal that he hopes to share Hindenburg’s resources and training materials soon so others can use them for their investigations.
But a word of caution: There are reasons that some short sellers choose to stay in the shadows, including public blowback and safety. “People call me and say they’re going to murder me and my entire family,” Anderson told Institutional Investor in 2020 for a long feature about short sellers.
WSJ’s Ben Foldy is already working on a book about Anderson and Hindenburg, due early next year. That’s probably one we should preorder. - An Illustrator Dies, His Last Book Unfinished. In Steps His Son. This story in The New York Times is 100% worth your time and, of course, not really about the book. It’s about pressure — incidentally by a parent, from a community, and applied to oneself — to live up to a family name. “He didn’t know if he could do the project justice. Even if he could, the role of art in his life had long been a source of tension with his father.”
- Howie Buffett has been a sheriff, a member of the Nebraska ethanol board and a farmer. He’s served on corporate boards and runs a charitable foundation. Now he’s getting ready for a high-profile job: chairman, without an executive role, of the nearly $1 trillion Berkshire Hathaway.
- Steve Cohen had a very good year. Almost too good, actually. Point72 Asset Management’s flagship fund generated a 19% return in 2024, forcing it to hand back to clients between $3 billion to $5 billion in profits sometime early this year, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
Jobs
- Toronto-based multifamily office Northwood is hiring a family office advisory principal.
- A shall-not-be-named family office in Greenwich, Connecticut, is hiring a senior accountant. Salary is $130,000 and you’d get a bonus, which might or might not push your total compensation above the city’s median household income.
Let’s get together, I’ll be in…
- Gotham this month.
- The City of Champions next month.
- The Magic City for Future Proof Citywide in March.
- Hollywood’s Playground, also in March.
Reminders
- This newsletter will always contain exclusive content, but follow Modus on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on the occasional timely or breaking story.
- I am literally daring you to pitch me an opinion essay idea. Here’s how. Publishing stuff on the Internet is easy, but most of it has no staying power. Overcome your fear (and compliance), and let me help you write something meaningful.
