The people who run 'family offices' -- private operations dedicated to managing the money and daily lives of the rich -- are increasingly getting rich themselves.

Wealthy Americans have set up 3,000 to 5,000 family offices, experts estimate. The growing number of families going this route, combined with the increasing complexity of investing, has led to heightened competition for the relatively limited pool of people qualified to manage these offices. Salaries for high-level family-office managers have risen more than 20% a year since 2002, reaching $3 million a year or more for the most experienced investment managers.

That's why some families have taken to poaching staff from other families. Others are showering their family-office chiefs with plush perks like club memberships, free meals, invitations to elite black-tie charity events -- and use of the family jet.

One family even offered guaranteed admission to an elite private school for the children of its family-office chief, since the patriarch of the family is a trustee of the school, says Jane Bierwirth, a New York-based executive search consultant at Higdon Partners who helps the rich find office managers. 'People are getting more creative with perks,' she says.

And a growing number of wealthy families are dangling the biggest perk of all: allowing their family-office manager to become a 'participant,' investing his or her own funds along with the family money in big deals with the possibility of becoming rich themselves. Richard Rainwater, the investment adviser who became wealthy managing money for the Bass family of Texas in the 1980s, has become the model for such family-office chiefs.

'The game has totally changed over the past five years or so,' says Bob Hamshaw, managing director of the family office for the Santo Domingos, a wealthy South American clan. 'Today, there's much more demand for the good investment people and true professionals.'

Granted, family offices are nothing new. John D. Rockefeller Sr. in the 1890s employed Frederick Gates (no relation to Bill) to handle many of his personal investments, family-wealth issues and philanthropy. Over the past century, family offices became more diversified, handling everything from investing and estate planning to more mundane tasks like arranging the family trip to Paris, hiring the maids and walking the dog.

Family offices have traditionally been the exclusive purview of the super-rich. Because they are costly to run, family offices made economic sense only for households worth $100 million or more. Those worth less were better off using traditional wealth managers, such as private banks or trust companies, along with travel agents and household-staffing services.

Yet in recent years, as the number of multimillion-dollar households has soared, family offices have proliferated. At the same time, they became more affordable to households worth less than $100 million, as outsourcing and specialized family-office service companies helped reduce the number of workers needed to run such an office.

Still, 'I don't think that compensation has caught up with the demands and rigors of the job,' says Nathan Troutman, who recently ran Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen's family office.

As a result, the demand for seasoned family office chiefs is outstripping supply. Some managers are drawn from the accounting and legal professions. With financial markets becoming increasingly complicated, more families are looking for top investment managers to run their offices, which means they have to compete for talent with Wall Street, hedge funds and private-equity firms. Since salaries and bonuses in those businesses have soared, so have family-office salaries.

'The hedge fund and private equity model is spilling over into family offices,' says Stephen Martiros, managing partner at CCC Alliance, a Boston-based coalition of families worth $100 million or more.

Michael Dell, for instance, hired a top Goldman Sachs investment chief, Glenn R. Fuhrman, to manage investments for his family office. Mr. Martiros said another family recently hired a pension-fund manager from Hewlett-Packard who had experience evaluating hedge funds and portfolio managers.

Russ Alan Prince, head of Prince & Associates, a Connecticut-based wealth research firm, recently conducted a study of 189 single-family offices and found a growing divide in pay between the traditional way such offices were organized and the new 'participant' style. The median 2006 compensation for traditional family-office chiefs, who are family employees and no more, was $205,000 a year.

But median compensation for participant family-office managers hit $1,932,000, boosted by their ability to piggyback on the investments of their employers. 'They want a piece of the action,' Mr. Prince says of these managers. 'They're no longer content to be employees.'

Mr. Prince says family-office managers are also demanding higher compensation to deal with the demands of dysfunctional families -- whether it's finding lawyers for the spoiled son who gets in trouble or monitoring the credit-card debts of the free-spending daughter.

'If I'm a family-office manager making $3 million, dealing with the brat is no big deal,' he says. 'If I'm only making $100,000, the brat is a pain in the neck.'

And when all else fails, some families are poaching. Kathryn McCarthy, a new York-based adviser to ultrawealthy families setting up family offices, says one Midwest family lured a family-office chief away from another rich family. When he didn't work out, they poached again.

'Going to another family office is the first line of defense for talent,' she says.

Robert Frank

“家族理财室”(family offices)就是为有钱人打理钱财和日常生活的私人机构，经营这种机构的人自己也正变得越来越富有。

据专家预测，美国有钱人已经设立了3000至5000个“家族理财室”。由于采用这种方法的家族越来越多、所进行的投资越来越复杂，而胜任这种工作的人才又相对有限，使得市场对此类人才的抢夺日益激烈。家族理财室的高级管理人员的薪水自2002年以来上涨了20%，最有经验的投资经理年薪已达三百万美元以上。

正因如此，一些家族开始从其他家族中挖角。另一些家族则向自己家族理财室的高级经理提供丰厚的福利，如俱乐部会员身份、免费餐饮、邀请他们参加精英阶层的正式慈善晚会──以及让他们使用家族的专机等等。

简·比尔沃思(Jane Bierwirth)是Higdon Partners驻纽约的高级猎头顾问，她的工作就是帮助有钱人寻找家族理财室。她说，有一个家族甚至还保证让其家族理财室负责人的孩子进入一所私立贵族学校，因为该家族的大家长是那所学校的受托人。“人们想出的福利越来越有创意了，”她说。

越来越多的富有家族正开出有史以来最为丰厚的条件：允许其家族理财室的理财师成为“合伙人”，将他们自己的资金与家族的钱一起投资到重要业务中，这样他们自己也有机会成为富豪。理查德·雷恩沃特(Richard Rainwater)是一名投资顾问，20世纪80年代他为得克萨斯州的巴斯家族(Bass family)打理财产，自己也因此富有起来。他已成为家族理财室主管们的楷模。

“过去五年左右的时间里，情形已经完全发生变化，”南美洲富豪圣多明戈(Santo Domingos)家族理财室的董事总经理鲍勃·哈姆肖(Bob Hamshaw)说，“如今，优秀投资人才和专业人士变得供不应求。”

事实上，家族理财室也不是什么新鲜事物。在19世纪80年代，老约翰·D. 洛克菲勒(John D. Rockefeller Sr.)就聘用弗里德里克·盖茨(Frederick Gates，跟比尔·盖茨没关系)替他打理个人投资、家族财产问题以及慈善事业。到上个世纪，家族理财室的业务更为多样化，处理从投资、地产规划到安排行程、雇请女佣、遛狗等的各种事宜。

家族理财室传统上是超级富豪专属的领域。由于家族理财室运营成本高昂，因此只有当家族资产超过1亿美元时，使用它们才有经济意义。资产不到这个数字的家族最好还是使用传统的理财师，比如私人银行或信托公司，辅以旅行社和家政人员的服务。

然而近年来，亿万富豪家庭数量剧增，家族理财室也随之激增。与此同时，外包的应用以及专门的家族理财室服务公司的涌现让家族理财室得以减少雇员数量，也使资产在1亿美元以下的家族也能负担得起家族理财室的费用。

不过，“我认为这些服务并没有达到这份工作所要求的严格标准，”内森·特劳特曼(Nathan Troutman)说。他最近在负责运营微软公司(Microsoft)亿万富翁保罗·艾伦(Paul Allen)的家族理财室。

结果就是，经验丰富的家族理财室理财主管供不应求。一些理财师是从会计和法律行业转行而来的。随着金融市场日趋复杂，更多的家族想要寻求顶级投资管理人员来打理他们的家族理财室，这意味着他们要跟华尔街、对冲基金及私人资本运营公司争抢人才。由于这些行业的薪水和奖金大涨，家族理财室的薪酬亦水涨船高。

“对冲基金和私人资本运营模式也渗入到家族理财室，”CCC Alliance的执行合伙人斯蒂芬·马里洛斯(Stephen Martiros)说。CCC Alliance是由资产1亿美元以上的家族组成的一个联盟，总部位于波士顿。

例如迈克尔·戴尔(Michael Dell)就雇用了高盛集团(Goldman Sachs)顶尖的投资主管格伦·R·福尔曼(Glenn R. Fuhrman)来管理他的家族理财室。马里洛斯说，另一个家族最近雇用了一名来自惠普(Hewlett-Packard)的退休基金经理，此人有评估对冲基金及投资经理的经验。

Prince & Associates是一家总部位于康涅狄格州的财富研究公司，其负责人鲁斯·艾伦·普林斯(Russ Alan Prince)最近进行了一项对189个家族理财室的研究，结果发现，在这些理财室的传统组织形式和新的“合伙人”形式之间，理财师的报酬日趋分化。传统的高级家族理财室人员（其身份仅仅为家族雇员） 2006年的年薪为20.5万美元。

然而身为家族合伙人的家族理财室经理的年薪中值达到192.3万美元，这是由于他们能借助雇主的投资为自己赚钱。“他们想要参与投资，”普林斯评价这些人说“他们不再满足于充当雇员。”

普林斯说，对于家庭状况不太好的家族，为了帮助它们处理诸如惯坏了的儿子陷入麻烦要找律师、挥霍无度的女儿信用卡需要监控等等棘手事情，家族理财室经理会要求更高的报酬。

“如果我是一名年薪300万美元的家族理财室经理，对付那些小鬼就没什么大不了的，”他说，“如果我只能挣10万美元，那些小鬼就讨厌之至了。”

虽然经理们做事不力，一些家族就会考虑去别去另请高人。凯瑟琳·麦卡锡(Kathryn McCarthy)是纽约一名专门帮助超级富豪建立家族理财室的顾问。她说，中西部的一个家族从另一个富有家族那里挖走了一名高级理财师。那个人表现不好，于是他们再另觅他人。

“去另一所家族理财室也是此类人才保住饭碗的第一道防线，”她说。

Robert Frank