Patricia Saputo, a third-generation member of the family that founded Canadian company Saputo Inc., has been working with her family office since 1998. Today, she is CEO of that family office, and she works to help other families with education through Crysalia, the advisory firm she co-founded. She is also chair of Tiger 21 Montreal, an ultra-high net-worth peer group. She talks about the evolution of her family’s family office, and her role in it:
How did you get into the family office?
My Sicilian background and culture were very important to my trajectory: Being Sicilian and patriarchal, with my father having five daughters, we knew that education was important so that we can do something else — because the family business wasn’t where the women were going to the top.
So, I became a tax accountant and worked at Deloitte up until 1997, when the family business went public. Having the professional knowledge that I had, I was named to the board, and I needed to leave Deloitte to accept the position because they were the auditors.
In 1998, the terminology ‘family office’ didn’t exist. But that’s when I began my family’s family office — or probably Version 2.0 of it. The investment holding company that was created in the 1980s due to an estate freeze would have been the first version of that family office. When Version 2.0 came into being, conversations were had between me and my parents, to invest the excess dividends coming from the operating business, and I would implement their ‘marching orders’ on investments.
What is your role today?
My day-to-day role is that of the executive of my family’s single family office.
In addition, in April 2021, I co-founded Crysalia, because I felt there was a service offering in the learning and development of our human capital in family businesses that wasn’t really attended to. When I was looking for this in Canada, there were a few people doing it, but not at the level that I felt was needed.
I also wear another hat: I chair the Montreal chapter of Tiger 21, a peer-to-peer group for those that have liquidity events who are entering the world of wealth. They are entrepreneurs, and they may not have any idea what the world of wealth is all about.
How has your family office evolved?
Version 2.0 is morphing into what I’m calling V. 3.0 — currently, we are developing 3.0, based on the needs of the family members.
We are formalizing the family office and its service offering to the family members, because eventually it has to be a professionalized single family office, so that when next generations are serviced, it’s the same rules and regulations for all. Version 3.0 will serve my parents, their five daughters and spouses, and the nine grandchildren for now. We’re building it for just our branch. Eventually, as the grandchildren have children, it will serve whoever wants the services. It could be less or it could be more.
We’re untangling our single family office from the investment company, Placements Italcan Inc., because the family office for us is the service offering to family members, whereas the investment holding company is our business — the business of investing. The income generated from the business is what helps the family members get the cash flow they need for their day-to-day needs. Whether that business was our old manufacturing business or our new investment business, the business is separated from the office. The office is a service center. We’re now expanding that service offering to the family members: It’s estate planning, tax planning and also the development of human capital.
Eventually, you get to the institutional family office — Version 4. If you’re going to keep all the money together in that investment holding company and you’re servicing all these branches, then you have to have this institutional way of thinking to be sure that formal processes are put in place, that family members know exactly what they’re getting out of the office, and that they can choose to either stay in or prune themselves. When you look at these seven-, eight-, nine- or 10-generation families, that’s what it is. It doesn’t work for everybody. Is that what we hope to be? I don’t know — it’s not my decision to make. It’s the next generation’s decision to make. And until we get Version 3.0 up and running, we can’t get to 4.0.
What services do you offer to family members?
The service that they don’t realize they need but gets done anyway, is the compliance stuff that has always been done for them: financial statements, tax returns for each of the family members and the companies and trusts in the estate plan. When we asked, ‘What do you want the office to do for you?’ family members forgot about that — yet it’s No. 1 right now.
We will also help with estate planning and succession planning. It then goes out to investment needs, including cash flow management.
We also are educating family members and having family meetings so that they understand the past, the present, the future: where the money came from, my father’s story of immigrating to Canada, how the business got developed to where we are today, and what the money could do for you tomorrow. We are also developing the governance process.
The part that we’re not providing is the concierge services, such as planning trips or helping with individual bill payments. We’re very strong women, and we have our own way of doing things. We don’t want others to touch certain parts of our lives. So we all take care of our own finances and our own bill payments, and the management of our homes. As we get older, will we want somebody else to take care of it? Maybe. That’s all part of the discussions. We put it on the back burner for now, because we have so many other things to develop.
How do you manage family dynamics?
We’re a family like any other family. We have differences — and because we’re all opinionated, we make ourselves heard. But at the end of the day, we’ve agreed to look at what the majority wants and go on that basis. It’s hard to get unanimity, but we try to get to a point where we explain to the one or two that are not in agreement why we think one way. Either we get them to side with the majority, or we agree to disagree on whatever it is, and still try to move forward.
