Inside the World of Private Wealth, Governance and Family Capital
Julian R. Sterling
These are the companion files of The Family Office Professional by Julian R. Sterling.The book on Amazon →
One Excel workbook that answers the question the book leaves as an adjective. Around it, a blank version for your own office, four working documents to print, forty questions that mark themselves, and three cases the book does not work. All free. Nothing is gated behind a sign-up, and no email address is asked for.
Six workbooks, the printable documents and the read-me. Each group below can also be
downloaded on its own. Last revised 22 September 2026.
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Chapter 2 says a single-family office is expensive relative to the assets it
manages and viable only above a substantial threshold. That is the most
consequential sentence in the book for a family deciding what to build, and it deserves
a number. The number is 567 million. At that level of wealth a staffed
office and a competitive multi-family office both cost about 2.44 million a year, or 43
basis points.
The two curves cross because one cost is fixed and the other is not. A five-person
office costs the same 2,442,000 whether it oversees 100 million or two billion, so its
weight falls from 244 basis points to 12. A tiered multi-family
schedule falls too, but only from 65 to 30. One curve plunges, the other sags, and they
meet exactly once.
The more useful sheet reframes cost as a hurdle: how much better must the office
perform, net, to be worth its extra expense? At 250 million, 42 basis points a
year — every year, through the cycle, from a five-person team. At 500 million,
three. Above the crossover the hurdle is negative and the office pays for itself before
adding any value at all.
Add a second analyst on the budget sheet. The crossover moves out to 666 million — a shift of 99, not the 64 the salary alone suggests, because employer costs and the bonus pool apply to that salary like any other.
Then cut ten basis points off the multi-family office’s top tier and it moves out again, to 777 million. The threshold is not a property of the industry — it is a
property of two schedules, and it is more sensitive to the fee you can negotiate than to
the salary you pay. Useful to know before a negotiation, and uncomfortable to
discover after one.
What the arithmetic does not settle
Confidentiality has a value that does not appear in a fee schedule. So does control over
hiring, over what gets reported and to whom, and over the ability to act on a Friday
afternoon without a committee. The point of computing the threshold is not to overrule
those reasons — it is to price them. A family building an office at 300 million is
choosing to pay about 29 basis points a year, roughly 870,000, for control, confidentiality
and continuity. That may be excellent value. It is a different decision from believing the
office is free, and only one of the two can be defended to the next generation.
The same model, for your own office
The appendix model with every figure emptied. Type in your own office and the schedule you have been quoted; the checks sheet counts what is still missing and tests that the model holds together.
Chapter 2 and the appendix
A blank cost model
Up to eight people and eight running lines, employer costs and the bonus pool, and a four-tier multi-family schedule whose bounds you set. The crossover is solved in whichever tier it falls, not only above 500 million, and the hurdle is computed at the family’s own level of wealth and across a grid you can change.
The book’s office and schedule are listed in a text file inside the archive. Type them back in and the file returns 2,442,000, 244 basis points at 100 million and a crossover of 567 million.
Four pages to print and take into a meeting. A4, with margins wide enough for US Letter.
Appendices A, C and D · the cost appendix
Four working documents
The questions of Appendix A that place any office on the spectrum, with the three numbers a professional should know about their own. The functions checklist of Appendix C, in house, outside or not done. The cost appendix as a worksheet, down to the crossover and the hurdle. And the self-assessment of Appendix D, scored line by line.
A workbook that marks itself. Answer in the yellow cells; the marking fills in as you go.
All parts of the book
Forty questions on the book
Six on the institution and its roles, six on investing, six on governance, structuring, risk and reporting, five on the family and the career, ten on the cost appendix and seven on the three cases below. Numbers are marked to a tolerance, multiple choice to the letter, and the score sheet counts your errors part by part: that is your revision list.
Nothing is hidden. The marking sheet holds every answer, every tolerance, and the reason for each answer.
New material, not a restatement. Three situations the chapters name in passing and never take to a number. Each case is one workbook: the note is the first sheet, the model is the rest, and a checks sheet closes it. Type your own figures in and every finding recomputes.
Chapter 8 · Case one
The fortune in one company
A family holds 70 per cent of 600 million in the company it built. Selling down to 10 per cent costs 87.6 million of tax. It also cuts the chance of ending ten years below half the wealth from 10.4 per cent to 0.5. And the median outcome barely moves, 863 million against 860: volatility drag earns the tax back in about ten years.
Chapters 4 and 5 · Case two
The allocation nobody chose
A 30 per cent target in private funds, pursued by committing 50 million a year for six years. Without any shock the share peaks at 39.5 per cent. With a 25 per cent market fall in year five it reaches 48.3 per cent. The family never runs short of cash; what it loses is the allocation it chose. Holding the peak at 30 needs about 37 million a year, or 30 with the fall.
Chapters 8 and 11, and the appendix · Case three
The office that splits with the family
A founder with 1.5 billion runs the appendix office. Three children a generation and a 15 per cent transfer cost take each branch to 861 million, then 481, then 256. By generation three every branch sits below the 567 million crossover. Separate offices cost the family about a billion by generation four; staying in one office avoids it.
Every figure is illustrative, as everything in the book is. What is not illustrative is the
shape of the result, which holds for any plausible set of inputs. The workbook prices the
office, not the portfolio: no investment management fees, no fund expenses, no performance
compensation on direct deals.
Opening the file
The workbook opens in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Numbers. It uses
no macros and no add-ins, so nothing needs to be enabled or trusted. If your spreadsheet
asks to update links on opening, decline — there are none.
What changed, and when
22 Sep 2026
A blank version of the cost model, four working documents on four pages, forty questions that mark themselves and three new cases. The book’s workbook can now also be downloaded on its own. One sentence of its read-me is corrected: a second analyst moves the crossover by 99 million, not “roughly 60”; the model has not changed.
Articles on this book
9 of the calculations in this workbook, worked out in full.
All articles.
How much liquidity should a family office hold?Two stressed years of spending, tax and capital calls, net of stressed distributions. A $400m family with $60m unfunded needs $67.06m, not two years of spending.
How do you calculate tax drag on a taxable portfolio?Pre-tax minus after-tax compound return. At 7.0 per cent pre-tax over 20 years, drag runs from 122 bps with no turnover to 160 bps at full turnover: $21.1m on $100m.
How does a sale to an IDGT work? A worked exampleThe trust buys assets for an AFR note and keeps the growth above it: $20M growing 7 per cent, sold for a 4.00 per cent note, leaves heirs $18.13M after 9 years.
How much is tax-loss harvesting really worth?Harvesting 3m of losses saves 714,000 now, but the lower basis repays it on sale: net 526,196 over ten years, about 6 bps a year, unless held until death.
Also by Julian R. Sterling
The other books with companion files. The full list of titles is on the
author page.
How to Read a Commercial LeaseThe three refinements chapter 19 names and never performs, and the renewal rate below which the mark-to-market is worth nothing.
How to Read a Real Estate Loan AgreementThe cure ratio in closed form, the four-point window in which the cheap cure works, and the cure sized to the wrong threshold.
The CBAM Compliance HandbookWhat 2027 really costs, how big the buffer should be, and the term the surrender formula counts twice.
Private Markets PerformanceThirty-one of the thirty-three figures chapter 19 publishes reproduce exactly — and the two that do not are named rather than quietly adopted.
The Private Equity Fund Controller PlaybookThe book defines IRR, DPI, RVPI and TVPI, tells you to update them at the exit, and prints not one value. Computed: a 1.833× deal inside a fund at 0.892 TVPI.
The Private Credit InvestorThe two coverage ratios are not measured on the same thing: the erosion is 47.7 per cent, not the 28.7 the headline implies.
The Distressed Debt InvestorWhere the fulcrum security actually breaks, and what an 80-cent recovery is worth once composition and time are priced.
The Real Estate Debt InvestorThe margin against the return on capital, the floor priced, and what prepayment protection buys.
The Fund Finance ProfessionalChapter 8 builds the reported-to-eligible NAV bridge; chapter 9 computes every ratio without it. Two points at every state — and what a subscription line does to the IRR.
Office Real EstateA six per cent yield that returns 3.2 per cent once the re-letting cycle is paid for, and the headline-to-net-effective rent arithmetic.
Real Estate FinanceFour people look at one building and reach four numbers; the lender is whole only above 105,109,489, twelve per cent below today’s value rather than forty.
Retail Real EstateThe occupancy cost of every unit in a centre, the sixteen per cent of the rent roll no tenant can sustain, and the right-size-convert-or-hold decision priced.
Sale and LeasebackA €179.5 million transaction end to end, with rent cover measured on the entity that actually signs the lease.
Self-Storage Real EstateThe cohort engine behind a 590-unit store, and the rate increase on existing customers priced against the move-outs it causes.
Financial Risk ManagementA fund inside every limit that cannot meet a redemption — and the number that decides it is the one with no currency attached.
Business ValuationThree advisers land 26.8 per cent apart on one company, and the whole gap turns out to be 1.96 points of perpetual growth.
Quantitative FinanceThree models agree to a quarter of one per cent about a number that one unobservable input moves a hundred and three times as much.
Asset ManagementFour people quote four returns for one mandate, all correct and 2.7017 points apart — forty-eight times the manager’s net skill.
Alternative InvestmentsA manager reports 13.29 per cent and the endowment earns 6.26 — both correct, and only a third of the advertised advantage arrives.
Credit AnalysisFour defensible EBITDAs on one borrower give leverage from 3.19x to 6.47x — and the add-back argument is fifty times the covenant headroom.
Venture CapitalOne company out of twenty-eight returns 56.7 per cent of the fund, and half the capital goes in after the decision — at half the return.
Machine Learning for FinanceFive people quote the accuracy of one credit model, all five are right, and the number that decides how much money it makes is none of them.
Commercial Real Estate InvestingThe equity earned 8.6647 per cent and the investor received exactly 8.0000 — the preferred return, and nothing above it.
Mergers and AcquisitionsThe board paper says the deal creates 13,436,667 of value. The arithmetic says it destroys 17,530,855. Nobody is lying.
DerivativesThe treasury report says the hedge cost 1,233,698. That is the interest differential, not a cost.
Treasury ManagementFive cash balances for one company, all correct and 145,600,000 apart — and the revolver that is two-thirds of the liquidity leaves at a revenue fall of 8.4127 per cent.
Financial Planning and AnalysisRevenue 3.0190 per cent above budget and operating profit 16.3209 per cent below it, in the same quarter, with every figure correctly stated.
Energy TradingA position report that is 91.7031 per cent hedged and correctly computed, on a book that is short 2,542,000 MWh — and a margin call of 198,400,000 the next morning.
Construction Cost ControlA contract sum of 26,301,102 became a final account of 29,153,363 on the building that was drawn — and 85.8 per cent of what was lost was knowable on the day it was signed.
Trade FinanceSix routes to payment on one 4,200,000 export order cost between 178,040 and 223,268, a spread worth 14.8 per cent of the margin, and a day of buyer credit costs 1,031.76.
Cost AccountingOne factory costed twice on the same 13,440,000 of overhead, and 4,053,091 moves between four product families.
Pricing StrategyA list price of 148.00, a pocket price of 112.51, and the nine deductions in between — with what one point of price is actually worth.
Contract ManagementA bid 5.50 a unit cheaper, signed on paper worth 9.81 a unit more — and 94.68 per cent of it was knowable on the day of signature.
Capital MarketsFour defensible readings of one bond, the cost of an issue under each convention, and the placement discount computed at a constant discount.
Financial RegulationThree ratios pass and the fourth is in breach by 1,956.0 million: the output floor, the liquidity buffer after encumbrance, and the loan split.
Bank ManagementFour defensible readings of one balance sheet, the deposit beta measured two ways, and the liquidity that lasts 3.9 days.
The Real Estate WorkoutFour ways out of one broken loan, discounted to today, and the 58.7 cents at which a payoff beats enforcement.
Go beyond the companion files
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