Some Canadian firms have adopted the language of the family office over the past decade, but many remain predominantly investment management businesses serving wealthy clients.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Corient Holdings Inc.’s plan to expand its multi-family office services into Canada may seem odd, given that it’s controlled by the same shareholder, Mubadala Investment Company PJSC, as CI Financial Corp., which already has major Canadian asset and wealth management divisions.
But the significance of the announcement is not that another wealth manager is entering the Canadian market. It’s that CI appears to be introducing a far wider-reaching and extensive version of the multi-family office (MFO) model than what has existed domestically. That includes lending and concierge services, private aviation and art management alongside the customary investment management, financial planning and trust and estate services.
According to data released last year by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Canada has roughly 176,800 families with each having a net worth exceeding $7.5-million. That’s a meaningful and growing pool of ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) families whose financial lives increasingly extend across multiple jurisdictions, private investments, trusts and operating businesses.
As wealth becomes more global, the advisory model must adapt.
In this respect, the Canadian market remains less mature than the U.S. and parts of Europe. Many Canadian firms have adopted the language of the family office over the past decade. In practice, however, most remain predominantly investment management businesses serving wealthy clients.
The challenge is that building a comprehensive MFO firm – with cross-border capabilities across investment management, financial planning, estate and tax, and lifestyle management and concierge – is expensive and difficult to justify economically unless firms operate at a significant scale.
Campden Wealth Ltd. and Royal Bank of Canada published The North America Family Office Report 2025 last year, which found that commercial multi-family offices (those owned by third parties rather than the family itself) typically require more than US$3.5-billion in assets to operate sustainably. This threshold helps explain why of the 70 respondents to the Canadian Family Offices report on MFOs in 2025, approximately 83 per cent had fewer than 25 full-time employees.
The operating model has also grown significantly more complex.
According to UBS AG’s 2025 report on global family offices, staffing, infrastructure and technology account for more than half of family office operating costs, and that excludes asset management. That’s a different economic model from traditional wealth management, in which marginal costs typically decline as assets under management increase.
The RBC-Campden report also found that adoption of automated investment reporting and wealth aggregation systems rose to 69 per cent from 46 per cent a year earlier, as families sought more sophisticated reporting across entities, jurisdictions and private investments. These systems, and the professionals needed to operate them, are costly.
Meanwhile, the largest families are questioning whether to continue outsourcing these functions.
As assets grow, many UHNW families consider establishing their own single-family offices and hiring investment professionals, governance specialists and internal reporting teams. In general, once a family’s wealth crosses US$150-million, they become an ideal candidate for establishing a single-family office.
MFO firms are being pushed to invest heavily in infrastructure, yet face the risk that if the cost for their services becomes too high, the family may internalize those same services over time. That creates a tension on pricing unique to MFOs.
Cross-border complexity further challenges the economics. Supporting globally mobile families requires expertise in international taxes, trust and fiduciary administration, multi-jurisdictional reporting, cybersecurity and private markets. Building these capabilities within a Canadian wealth management firm is difficult to justify unless the platform already operates at significant international scale.
That’s one reason firms such as Stonehage Fleming, which Corient acquired in 2025 and has US$214-billion in client assets, have become globally influential. Their businesses were designed from the outset to serve internationally mobile wealth.
Where that leaves Canada’s MFO market
Corient’s expansion into Canada is significant because it may offer UHNW Canadian families a deeper level of co-ordination and infrastructure than most domestic firms have provided.
As families become more familiar with the services Corient offers, other Canadian MFOs will need to adapt to compete.
That will require Canadian wealth management firms to make clearer strategic choices. Some will continue as high-end investment managers for wealthy clients, while others will invest in the technology, talent and cross-border capabilities needed to operate as a full-service MFO.
Both models can succeed, but the gap between them is becoming harder to ignore.
Still, the opportunity is real. Canada’s UHNW population continues to expand at roughly 4.4 per cent annually, creating a growing market for firms that can deliver beyond investment management to these families.
Joe Millott is a partner at Fort Capital Partners, an independent investment bank specializing in wealth and asset management mergers and acquisitions, with offices in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto.