Who’s Really Responsible for Your International Investments?
I spoke with a client earlier this month – I’ll call him Max – who’s a sophisticated investor by any reasonable standard. He holds multiple asset classes in different countries, working with capable professionals in each location.
Max brought us on because he wants to set up an account in Switzerland for wealth protection. But, as often happens, we got to talking about other things.
At one point, he said, “I have so many different accounts in different places; is there someone who can manage the structure for me?”
He’s been managing it all himself and is feeling a little overwhelmed.
More than that, Max realizes he doesn’t know everything. And that he doesn’t always know what those blind spots are.
He’s tried to rely on the people already on his team – his insurance agent, his US banker, his US asset manager – but they are experts in their own area and they naturally push their own solutions.
He’s yet to find someone who understands the whole picture. In fact, Max isn’t even sure if such a person exists.
Which is interesting because:
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There are indeed options out there.
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It’s a service we actually offer.
It’s a discussion almost any serious international investor has to deal with at some point when managing international investments.
Why International Portfolios Break Down
International portfolios involving different assets in different countries rarely fail because of bad investments on their own. They don’t work as expected because the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
Having assets in more than one country is a great way to diversify risk, but it comes with a certain level of complexity. New advisors, new tax and compliance reporting, sometimes a new structure.
In most cases, these advisors don’t automatically work together. A US accountant won’t often directly work with an accountant overseas. An asset manager in Switzerland won’t coordinate with your asset manager in the US, and vice versa.
No one is responsible for understanding the full structure. Their mandate stays to what they know best.
This is the challenge our client was running into. His US broker could only support US investments in US structures. His accountant in the US has no interest in understanding the tax complications of his European holdings beyond the obligatory FATCA and FBAR reporting. His US insurance agent was only able to push domestic policies – even though there was a better non-US alternative.
And because none of them worked together, the client was forced to constantly act as the go-between.
This is common. But, at a certain point, it tends not to work out well for the client long-term.
In such cases, it’s better to have someone with the needed experience to coordinate the many moving pieces.
Without it, over time, the portfolio becomes harder to understand, harder to manage, and harder to unwind.
Three Coordination Models
Like Max, international investors start off by managing their own foreign investments most of the time.
Maybe they set up a foreign bank account and take responsibility for forwarding over the annual report to their US accountant. Then they buy a piece of property and serve as the middleman between their accountants and lawyers in both places. Then they buy another property in another country, adding new accountants, lawyers, and other professionals to the mix.
They remain responsible for all of these relationships, which can work when the structure is simple. But it stops working as soon as the investor feels out of their depth. Eventually, they become a bottleneck. Decisions get delayed. Deadlines are missed.
And errors often creep in because no one has full visibility except the person least equipped to manage day-to-day coordination.
This is not hypothetical. We see this regularly.
And eventually, one of two things happen:
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The investor gets frustrated and tired and sells everything.
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They bring on dedicated professionals to carry the weight.
The question then becomes – who are those professionals? In that, there are really three options.
Single-Family Office (SFO)
The most traditional option is a Single-Family Office, or SFO. In this model, you create a new company dedicated to managing your wealth, and then hire a team of highly qualified professionals to keep on top of everything.
| Pro | Description |
| Full balance-sheet visibility | An SFO can see everything by design. Assets, entities, liabilities, and advisors all sit under one roof, which – if the team is competent – reduces the risk of things falling through the cracks. |
| High degree of control | The family sets the mandate. Structures, asset mixes, and overall planning are customized to fit your needs. |
| Direct accountability | Responsibility is internal. When something is missed, there is no guessing about where oversight failed. |
| Useful at sufficient scale | For very large, complex families, an SFO can justify permanent staff and internal expertise across multiple disciplines. |
| Con | Description |
| High fixed cost | Many costs – not least salaries – are fixed, meaning you must keep paying even if activity is fairly minimal. |
| Execution risk is concentrated in people | The outcome depends almost entirely on who is hired. One weak hire can undermine the structure. Replacing talent can be slow and disruptive. |
| International depth is uneven | Most SFO teams are strongest in one or two jurisdictions. True cross-border expertise is hard to build internally and often overstated. |
| Poor fit below ultra-high-net-worth levels | In a perfect world, the SFO pays for itself in terms of returns. If it manages a USD $100M portfolio and the operation costs USD $1M per year, you only need to earn an extra 1% (broadly speaking) to cover the operation. It’s hard to make the numbers work below a certain threshold. |
Single Family Office (SFO) – Final verdict
If you have a net worth of more than USD $100M-$150M – and a complex situation that requires full-time advisors – it’s worth a look. Otherwise, consider other options.
Multi-Family Office (MFO)
Another common option is a Multi-Family Office, or MFO. In this model, you outsource many of the coordination, reporting, and administrative functions to a firm that serves multiple families under a shared structure.
| Pro | Description |
| Lower ongoing fees | Costs for reporting, administration, and coordination are spread across multiple families, and thus usually cheaper than an SFO. |
| Access to a broader bench | Often provides access to specialists and institutional relationships that a single family may not build on its own. |
| Familiar US-based framework | Many MFOs are designed around US reporting, compliance, and estate planning norms. This can be quite useful if your portfolio is mostly based in the US. |
| Con | Description |
| Quality varies widely | “MFO” is not a standardized offering; depth and competence differ significantly by firm. |
| Asset-management bias | Many MFOs are built around managing assets, creating conflicts and limiting objectivity in structural decisions. They may not give you unbiased advice if it lowers their fees. |
| US-centric assumptions | International assets are often treated as exceptions rather than core components of the structure. |
Multi-Family Office (MFO) – Final verdict
If you want some of the benefits of an SFO without the high fixed costs—especially in a US-centric context—an MFO can make sense. Just be aware that quality and independence vary widely, and that many models are built around asset management rather than cross-border structure. For internationally complex portfolios, this limitation matters.
Independent Structural Coordination
Another option is independent coordination. In this model, you work with a group whose sole responsibility is to oversee how your existing advisors, structures, and jurisdictions fit together. They do not replace those advisors.
| Pro | Description |
| Focus on interaction risk | Explicit mandate to manage how jurisdictions, advisors, and structures interact across the full balance sheet. |
| No custody or product incentives | Does not custody assets or sell products, reducing potential conflicts of interest. |
| Works with existing advisors | Banks, managers, lawyers, and accountants remain in place; the role is complementary rather than a replacement. |
| Scales with complexity | Can adapt as structures and jurisdictions expand. |
| Con | Description |
| Lower visibility | Unlike an SFO or MFO, this role does not come with a widely recognized label, so its authority must be clearly defined upfront. |
| Limited delegation | Not designed for investors who want to fully outsource decisions and responsibility. |
| Advisor cooperation dependency | Effectiveness relies on transparency and cooperation from third-party advisors. |
| Limited availability | Cross-border planning is specialized and very few firms want to take on such an engagement without additional services. |
Independent Coordination – Final verdict
If your assets span multiple jurisdictions, you have more than three or four advisors, and you’re simply looking for help keeping everything compliant without giving up full control, independent coordination can be a good option.
What causes someone to bring on an outside service?
As mentioned earlier, most clients default to doing this on their own. But at some point, the structures that stand the test of time will get some outside help. In our case, we specialize in Independent Coordination. Here are the common reasons they engage us:
- They’re tired of keeping on top of the boring-but-necessary logistics.
- They’re planning for a future where they aren’t around anymore and they want their heirs to have someone onside who knows what’s going on.
- Their existing advisors miss something, which results in a fine or other penalty. They bring us on to help clean things up and prevent such things from happening in the future.
A Better Way to Manage Complexity
International portfolios don’t become difficult because they are international. They become difficult because no one is clearly responsible for how the pieces fit together.
Most investors don’t notice this at first. Things work well enough when there are only one or two foreign accounts. But as jurisdictions, asset classes, and advisors add up, coordination quietly becomes a full-time function. When that function is not explicitly assigned, the investor has to do it themselves.
At that point, the question is no longer whether you need good advisors. You already have those. The question is which coordination model actually fits the level of complexity you’ve created.
SFOs, MFOs, and independent coordination all solve different problems. None of them are universally “better.” What matters is whether someone has a mandate to understand the full structure and the ability to keep it in good order over time.
We work with investors who have crossed that threshold and need someone responsible for the structure as a whole. Please feel free to get in touch to explore how we might be able to help you.
About The Author
We have 40+ years experience helping Americans move, live and invest internationally…
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We have 40+ years experience helping Americans move, live and invest internationally…
