Architects of Family Wealth
‍Protecting and Growing Assets

In family office, we focus on protecting assets and diversifying investments abroad, said Jaroslav Havel, founder and managing partner of the law firm HAVEL & PARTNERS and the Czech-Slovak family office with an international reach, ONE FAMILY OFFICE.

Most wealthy individuals in the Czech Republic have a significant portion of their assets in a single business and domestic real estate, which significantly limits the mobility of the entire family in terms of its assets and family members.

At the beginning of 2024, you and your partners founded ONE FAMILY OFFICE, specialising in management of assets and their protection. What services does it offer?

ONE FAMILY OFFICE was created by merging and renaming existing activities developed since 2007 and expanding the team with several new investment professionals. Today, the team consists of approximately fifty lawyers, tax advisors, and accountants, and fifteen investment experts with international experience. It provides comprehensive services for high-net-worth individuals and families. In the area of advisory services, we offer establishing asset protection structures, succession planning, and safeguarding security in the broadest sense, as well as health concierge services and more. For example, in the area of succession matters, our team takes on administrator roles in family foundations and trusts. This way, as asset protection professionals, we can assist the family. As a trusted third party, we can provide our advisory expertise and share our investment experience as partners. In the field of investments, however, we are not asset managers and do not offer our own investment products. We primarily manage our own assets and share the team, costs, experience, and know-how on a club principle.

Why the name ONE FAMILY OFFICE (OFO)?

We spent a long time searching for the name of our family office and wanted it to be self-explanatory, so we chose ONE FAMILY. We aim to create a broader business family around OFO. We understand that our services are not typical for large firms, which tend to be more corporate.  With our partners, we work individually – in families, men and women are equally represented, as are different generations, and we also work multi-generationally.  We cover the needs of successful entrepreneurs who are of retirement age, as well as young children – their descendants and grandchildren. Everything is designed for entire families. Through our concierge services, we also strive to secure fundamental family values – maintaining health and ensuring prevention, family safety in the broadest sense, and the education and upbringing of the next generation.

You aimed to manage assets worth one billion dollars. How is it going so far?

The situation is developing very positively, with families owning hundreds of millions or billions in assets gradually joining us. A year after our founding, we have reached around one billion dollars in assets, and we naturally expect similar or even faster growth in the future. The total capacity can be 25 to 30 families, and at the current growth rate, it will be filled within two to three years. However, we also connect with various investors and wealthy individuals even for individual club investments. Therefore, it is not necessary to be a permanent “member” of ONE FAMILY OFFICE to cooperate with us.

Who does ONE FAMILY OFFICE cooperate with?

Our goal, in the spirit of our motto “Connected Through Success,” is to cooperate with high-net-worth families and individuals who share a similar world view, approach to investing, wealth management, and intergenerational planning. We typically work with successful entrepreneurs and managers looking for someone to help protect their assets. Our most typical business partner is a mid-sized entrepreneur with assets between CZK 100 and 300 million, often operating outside the capital or regional cities, finding it very difficult to obtain information about coinvestment opportunities and lacking access to asset management advice and related mechanisms. For wealthy families, we also address the transfer and preservation of wealth for future generations. Partners of our family office can include top athletes, noble families, but also church institutions, or successful lawyers, tax advisors and other consultants, architects, etc.

What does such cooperation look like?

ONE FAMILY OFFICE is a one-stop shop where a business partner can have all its needs handled or select specific services in a catalogue-like manner. Family offices are growing worldwide and are a suitable choice for investments in all asset classes. We differ from traditional banks and asset managers in that I personally accept business partners into OFO as the main investor and a person with long-term advisory, top management, entrepreneurial, and business experience. I provide each partner with a personal approach, which is highly appreciated by our high-net-worth families and middle age and older individuals.  This is something no one else offers on the Czech-Slovak market, and given the exceptional position of the HAVEL & PARTNERS Group, it is difficult for anyone else to offer. The terms of cooperation are also very fair, and any fees related to the administration of OFO services are affordable even for mid-sized entrepreneurs with assets in the tens of millions of crowns.

What investments does ONE FAMILY OFFICE focus on?

Me and my partners David Neveselý, Kateřina Zychová of Verdi, who previously worked on Wall Street, and Peter Bálint, who has long been based in Dubai, manage our own asset portfolios in the broadest possible scope. We exchange information, which allows us to invest together. This sharing of information and resources can also be utilized by other partners of our family office. We strive to invest money very profitably. One of the ways for us is strategic investments in local private equity funds, particularly focused on intergenerational exchange. This includes Verdi fond farem, managed by Kateřina Zychová and her team. Kateřina Zychová and Peter Bálint are also responsible for the portfolio composition and product development of the Verdi Apex fund, focused on hedge funds.

What other investment opportunities are available to ONE FAMILY OFFICE partners?

We invest locally in real estate, provide loans, and regularly purchase distressed assets. We have integrated the existing structure of Czechoslovak Capital Partners, with a successful twelve-year history and projects worth two billion crowns, into ONE FAMILY OFFICE. We also have an extensive venture capital portfolio – thirteen local and foreign funds. I personally invest in four funds in the crypto and blockchain sectors. Additionally, together with ONE FAMILY OFFICE partners, we invest internationally in global funds and world players, especially in private equity. In the past, these included funds such as KKR and Vista, and now we have the opportunity to invest in Bain Capital. These are opportunities typically unavailable in this region, mainly due to capital requirements.

How large is your investment team?

The investment team consists of fifteen senior people and as many as 25 advisors. Fourteen of them form the official Advisory Board on our website. I specialise in private equity – I have had experience since 1997 and of all people in the Czech Republic and Slovakia I have likely worked with the most funds as a lawyer. Other key members include Kateřina Zychová, Peter Bálint, and associate partner Michal Kľučár, who has fifteen years of experience from EPH. Most of our investment team members have international experience from long-term positions in the USA, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, and the UAE, working for companies such as Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse, Erste, J&T, EPH, Penta, and others. We have nine senior professionals who have long been accustomed to working with dollar billionaires in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and abroad – besides the partners and both associate partners Michal Kľučár and Daniel Drahotský, these include Jakub Vrbovský, Petr Dohnal, and Jaroslav Baier.

How do the investment expectations of the wealthiest Czech families differ from the reality of those who cooperate with you?

I can see that many people who are billionaires according to Czech rankings still have a large portion of their assets in one main business and also in real estate, often in the same place where they have their business. They often also have smaller portfolios managed by private banks, which include bonds, mostly local. However, our typical partners usually prefer a more active role.

If an entrepreneur owns over 90% of their assets in their place of residence, this does not provide the family with any mobility.

Why do you believe in diversifying assets abroad?

Even though wealthy people today have assets worth several billion, most of them are still “tied” to the Czech Republic or Slovakia and think in terms of Czech crowns when it comes to investing. The question remains whether their children, who often study abroad, and many times want to stay there after their studies, will see it the same way. If an entrepreneur owns over 90% of their assets in their place of residence, this does not provide the family with any mobility. At ONE FAMILY OFFICE, we try to open this discussion, and many people are receptive to it. They realize that their children may not live in the Czech Republic and that the commitments they create may not be attractive to their descendants. This is why we strive for the global mobility of assets and individuals.

ONE FAMILY OFFICE also focuses on generational exchange and succession. What does that entail?

At ONE FAMILY OFFICE, we help wealthy families find and create suitable legal, accounting, and tax solutions for family wealth and succession, always according to the individual needs of clients. Most often, it is a combination of a private foundation with an administrative holding or a family bank. This set-up can effectively eliminate the impacts of bad future family scenarios and ensure effective protection, development, and appreciation of assets, as well as the distribution of family wealth to children. The purpose is also to prevent asset fragmentation.

Where does the risk of asset fragmentation for wealthy people come from?

When we conducted the NextŽeny survey, which focused on the shift from active wealth building predominantly by men towards women and passive family members, we came to interesting conclusions. Similar to the US, the average super-wealthy man in the Czech Republic has two marriages in his history, with each woman having an average of two children, statistically balanced between daughters and sons. Men generally die earlier than women, by about six to seven years. After a man’s death in the family, the female element predominates. In such cases, an average of six people gather in the family, and if all property and inheritance matters are not resolved in advance, it complicates reaching an asset division and management agreement. Consequently, the risk of asset division or fragmentation is much higher. This is why we always recommend addressing everything in a preventively and timely manner.

How can one prepare for such situations?

For contrast, let’s look back to the era of “Ford-Baťa” capitalism, lasting until the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, the most suitable family member and possibly a CEO were sought to keep the company together. Outside the company, only a fraction of the assets was allocated to other family members, intended more for consumption than investment. It is only in the last ten years that the family office model has begun to prevail, where many companies are held long-term within the portfolio of one family. However, if a suitable successor is not found within the family to take over the business and asset management, our family office is ready to provide the capacity, extensive expertise, and administrative support of a professional fiduciary manager. We have the appropriate team, including staff, experience, and insurance.