By Charlotte Kramon
The Dallas Morning News
(TNS)
Aug. 12 — Although family offices deploy billions of dollars each year in private investments, alternative assets and public markets, they remain a distinct type of firm, making them exempt from some of the regulations that govern institutional investors such as private equity and hedge funds.
Because ultrawealthy individuals often set up single-family offices to manage their own family’s money, they aren’t required to register as investment advisers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That means firms that meet the SEC’s definition of single-family offices do not have to disclose information about private investments or the staffing and structure of their firms.
“They’re not managing other people’s money, so it makes sense that they’re not subject to the disclosures that an investment adviser would need to make about its business, conflicts of interest, disciplinary history and investment risk factors, etc.,” Burke McDavid, a Dallas-based attorney with Winstead PC, said. “They don’t need to be protected from themselves.”
Critics argue the exemption keeps regulators in the dark about what single-family offices are doing, and given their large investment footprint, there should be firmer regulations aimed at catching bad actors.
“There’s been aspects of [the SEC] trying to get at it in different ways, but I think one of the criticisms is there’s so much family office money in the U.S. and it’s growing, so they have such a huge impact,” said Evan Hall, co-chair of investment advisory regulatory compliance at Haynes Boone. “Where are we collecting the market data on what these guys are doing? There’s nothing directly that I can think of that directly gets to the systemic risk caused by family offices.”
AI wealth intelligence platform FINTRX identified 187 family offices in Texas that are not registered with the SEC as investment advisers. Those family offices have publicly identifiable ties to at least 1,033 transactions and a combined 943 companies and properties. Sixty-one family offices identified by FINTRX are registered, with public ties to 271 transactions and a combined 245 companies and properties. Not all family offices are publicly identifiable.
Most multifamily offices register with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as investment advisers and face various regulations. Some large single-family offices choose to register because they benefit from bringing in outside funding.
Lobbyists for the family-office industry successfully pushed for the Dodd-Frank Act, a bill that tightened regulations after the financial crisis, to explicitly exempt family offices from registering with the SEC as investment advisers, although many were already unregistered. Prior to the Dodd-Frank exemption, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 already exempted investment advisers with a small number of clients from registering.
The exemption spares family offices from bureaucratic slog that distracts them from executing deals, said Vicki Odette, global chair of the investment management practice group at Haynes Boone. She said there isn’t a compelling reason to take away their privacy.
“The SEC and the regulations are really focused on protecting passive third-party investors, and the family views it as, ‘This is family money,'” Odette said.
SEC guidance says that family offices receiving the exemption must be owned and controlled by the “family clients,” “family members” or “family entities,” although others such as certain key employees, foundations and some family trusts can be included. It must only provide investment advice to family clients.
Investment advisers managing more than $110 million in assets are typically required to register with the SEC. Family offices are still subject to securities laws, with varying state regulations. They have to file disclosures if they acquire more than 5% of a class of equity securities or if they are considered “large traders” by the SEC.
“A single-family office can usually avoid being considered an ‘investment adviser’ under the Investment Advisers Act, but that only takes it outside the SEC rules that come with adviser status. Other SEC rules still apply, and so does state law,” said Henry Hu, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who was the founding director of the SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis.
Getting family offices to register as investment advisers would not on its own address critic’s concerns about transparency, University of Richmond law professor Allison Tait said.
“It’s not going to fix everything, but I think it’s a start, and it’s an easy one because you’re just saying, ‘You’re no longer exempt from something,’ as opposed to, ‘We’re imposing new regulations on you,'” Tait said.
Despite Tait’s critique, Odette said family offices are not a major concern to the SEC, and it’s unlikely the agency will consider more regulations on family offices any time soon.
Photo credit: AquilaVeritas/Wikimedia Commons
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© 2026 The Dallas Morning News. Visit www.dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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