Family offices bid to secure generational wealth for Africa's rich

Africa is home to an estimated 122,500 millionaires, 348 centi-millionaires worth more than $100m, and 25 billionaires, according to the Africa Wealth Report 2025 by Henley & Partners. For many of the families behind these fortunes, the biggest test often comes when handing over the reins to the ext generation.

Across the world, few dynasties manage to keep their fortunes intact beyond three generations. The reasons for this vary and can be both internal and external to the family. Successors may lack the skills to manage complex businesses and assets; wrangling within the family over inheritance and control may divert attention and resources away from the founder's vision; heirs lacking financial discipline may fritter away their inheritance; shifts in the political or commercial environment may work against the family's interests - any number of risks can bring down a dynasty.

To beat the odds and ensure that legacies endure well beyond their founders, some are turning to so-called "family offices" who aim to secure generational wealth.

About more than just money

Services that family offices provide include investment management, tax planning, estate planning, philanthropy coordination, and concierge for family members. Family offices also help prominent families to manage the various external vendors and service providers that cater to the business and personal needs of the family.

They can be structured as single-family offices, serving one family exclusively, or multi-family offices, which cater to multiple families, offering shared resources and expertise. While there is no universal threshold, experts say family offices are most effective for families with a net worth of at least $50m. This is the point where the scale of wealth justifies the operational costs.

"Family offices are effective because they are about more than just money and the management of financial assets," says Barry Johnson, founder and executive chairman of 7 Generations Africa (7GA).

"It is an integrated concept that begins with the appreciation that if the family is to move through time successfully - meaning with its wellbeing, unity, fortune, and legacy all evolving to their highest goods - there are a number of internal and external matters that need to be governed by the family," he explains.

Some of these matters include what Johnson describes as non-financial forms of wealth. These, he says, include factors like good health, quality relationships, strong values, creativity, winning ideas, initiative, culture and heritage.

"There are all of these other forms of non-financial wealth, which when understood and utilised properly, can result in financial wealth. Money is always the result of utilising these forms of wealth, but we act like it is the first cause. We fail to realise money did not create itself and it cannot sustain itself."

A family office, he notes, helps family members understand these wealth principles, along with the family's own unique values, mission and vision. It offers every family member a common framework to assess how their everyday actions advance or undermine the goals of the family. It also provides mechanisms to mitigate disputes and preserve unity.

"When families govern these domains well, their money becomes better governed," Johnson emphasises, pointing to examples of leading dynasties globally.

"If you speak to people who have kept wealth in their families for hundreds of years and you say 'what do you do?' They are not going to say 'pick this or that stock'.

That's not the way they are going to talk to you. They are going to talk to you about your values, what you care about, how you spend your time, how you take care of your body. Those are the kind of things they are going to speak about," he explains.

Johnson argues that family offices can help preserve the family name when a successor chooses to chart a different path outside the family business. This is increasingly the case with younger generations, who may for example want to try their hand in tech rather than the legacy industries that their family fortunes are built on.

"There is the legacy of the last name and the legacy of the individual. The role of the family office is to empower the next generation to shape their own individual identity and legacy while respecting the last name," he says.

"Whether they decide to be a digital nomad or crypto investor, the role of the family office is to empower that individual to be able to chase their dreams and build their legacy while not being detrimental to the family."

Family offices spread the word in Africa

There are some 8000-10,000 family offices around the world today but only about 30-60 in Africa, according to Deloitte. This is despite there being an estimated 1,500-2,000 families with the kind of wealth that justifies having a family office.

Although the family office industry remains in its infancy in Africa, Johnson is optimistic it will take root among the continent's wealthiest families.

To win support among Africa's policymakers, asset managers and industry leaders, Johnson is positioning family offices as more than just a vehicle to preserve wealth and shape family legacies.

"Family offices are a deliberate new investor class that is more patient and can take a longer term view on opportunities," he notes.

According to Deloitte, single family offices worldwide control around $6 trillion in assets, surpassing the hedge fund industry's estimated $4 trillion. Their scale allows them to act as development catalysts, deploying capital flexibly into philanthropy, impact investing, and blended finance models. Unlike hedge funds and other traditional investors, family offices are not bound by quarterly returns - they think in generations, making them natural champions of long‑term impact.

"Wealthy families in Africa and from across the world can provide growth capital supporting Africa's development while also benefiting from the financial returns. They can help to signal to other private investors to back these ideas and businesses. Private wealth follows private wealth more readily than other investor-classes," he says.

He argues that philanthropy and impact investing are emerging as central pillars for family offices -serving not only as instruments of social impact and return generation, but also as a means to safeguard family values and reputation.

Family offices are a unique investor class that African entrepreneurs must engage, he insists. But he cautions that those seeking to raise capital from wealthy families must first do their homework and tailormake their pitch to the specific family they are targeting.

"There is a saying in the family office space that 'when you've met one bank, you have met all the banks. But when you've met one family, you've met one family.' Each family is very unique and seeks different things from its investments."

"You must understand what this is. Are they only about alpha with an interest in profit maximisation and outperforming the market, or do they also look at other non-financial metrics as well? You need to know who the family is, and then you will understand what they care about and whether or not you line up with that," he says.