What structures do families choose after selling their company: investment vehicles (72.4%), family offices (69.5%), and trust companies (65%)
22 OCT, 2026
By Joanna Piwko from RankiaPro Europe
When a family sells its business, it suddenly loses the structure that organized its decisions: the board, management, shareholder meetings, and financial reports. The question then becomes how to govern and own the liquid assets that remain. The Julius Baer and EY Family Barometer 2026, a survey of advisers to families with assets of more than 50 million Swiss francs, offers a snapshot of what they typically do.
A map of structures that work together
Advisers could select multiple options, so the percentages add up to more than 100%. The most common approaches after an exit are:
- Creating a family investment vehicle or another joint solution: 72.4%.
- Setting up a single-family office to manage the proceeds from the sale: 69.5%.
- Using trusts or similar arrangements for each family member: 65.0%.
- Setting up investment portfolios in each individual’s name: 48.7%.
- Acquiring or starting a new business: 27.8%.
- Creating a philanthropic entity: 16.6%.
Roman Berri, Head of Offering Management & Development at Julius Baer, explains that vehicles such as private label funds are less about seeking higher returns than about simplifying administration and governance. In his view, whether assets remain pooled or are distributed among family branches depends on each family’s goals and relationships.
Family offices: when they make sense
The report ranks the family office as the second most common structure and notes that the right model depends on the size, complexity, and governance needs. A first-generation entrepreneur may need specialist advice, ownership structures, and consolidated reporting without taking on the cost of an in-house team. In such cases, hybrid arrangements combining family oversight with external expertise often strike a balance.
In multigenerational families, the approach changes. María Eugenia Mosquera, of Julius Baer, describes the family office as the new shared project: it replaces entrepreneurship with investment management as a shared activity and as a framework for identity and purpose for the next generations.
By region, Asia stands out: 75.5% of respondents with clients in the region believe their families would establish a single-family office after the exit, the highest proportion of all. Even so, the preferred model is rarely self-sufficient: families retain strategic decision-making and turn to external professionals for specialized expertise.
Investment governance remains a work in progress
Choosing a structure is not the same as having governance. When asked which investment governance structures families put in place after the exit, the most common answer is none formally:
- No formal governance, ad hoc decisions: 26.7%.
- Professional family office with a CIO function: 26.5%.
- Family-only investment committee: 24.3%.
- Investment committee with an external CIO: 13.3%.
- Rules-based strategic asset allocation: 9.3%.
Mosquera argues that governance and wealth structuring are inseparable: the latter is the mechanism that gives the former’s agreements legal force. The structure may combine private investment companies, partnerships, trusts, foundations, life insurance solutions, and dedicated investment vehicles. As an example, she cites a founder who, after the sale and the establishment of a family constitution, implemented a multigenerational trust structure in which he retained defined investment powers and delegated part of the portfolio to Julius Baer, with a formalized investment policy.
How to interpret these figures
The results reflect the views of advisers, not those of the families themselves, and the document is marketing material from Julius Baer, whose executives provide many of the quoted perspectives. With that caveat, the message is clear: after a sale, the challenge is not just where to invest, but which family institution will make the decisions and how agreed-upon arrangements will be enforced. For those selecting funds or advising these families, this translates into joint vehicles and hybrid arrangements with external support as regular points of contact.
Source: Julius Baer and EY, Family Barometer 2026 (October 2026).
