When families look to invest beyond their operating business — either because they have sold the business or because they want to diversify their portfolios — real estate is a common choice.
“Over 90% of ultra-high net worth individuals and families either made money in real estate or have exposure to real estate,” Brian C. Adams, founder and president of Excelsior Capital, who also serves on the board of Sirrom Partners, a single family office based in Nashville, Tennessee. “When it comes to wealth creation and wealth maintenance, it is far and away the most popular and prevalent vehicle used.”
This is the case for the Mathile family, the former owners of pet food company Iams, as they look toward the family’s next chapter.

“The Mathile family has always been very entrepreneurial and engaged in a number of different private operating businesses and investments,” says Jason Mahoney, managing director of private capital for CYMI Holdings, the family office of the Clay and Mary Mathile family, the former owners of pet food maker the Iams Company. “The family has really thought about how they evolve the wealth story of the family over time. The wealth story started with Iams, but it can’t be about that forever. Clay and Mary created a legacy far beyond the success of the Iams Company that will continue to impact the future generations of the family.”
Today, the family, through CYMI, is exploring the creation of a long-term diversified real estate platform, which could potentially include a real estate development company, a brokerage, or an operating company that focuses on the real estate industry, such as construction. Real estate is a good foundation because it is a long-term, enduring asset class.
“As we think about a platform – we really keep that as the North Star – it’s not just about accumulating buildings or land on the balance sheet. It’s really about thinking about what a platform could look like with many different assets attached to real estate,” Mahoney says.
In addition to being a good long-term investment, real estate is well situated to help the family achieve two of its goals: community connection and family engagement.
The Mathile family’s reasons for exploring real estate investments for its next chapter illustrate why real estate has long been an attractive investment for families.
- Long-term horizon. When families invest together, they are often looking for ways to grow wealth over generations, not just in the near term.
“It’s a function of your time horizon,” Adams says. “Real estate in the U.S. has had a pretty predictable 3% annual appreciation year over year for the last 200 years — not year by year, but over centuries. If you take a really big step back and think about what’s going on in the rest of the world, domestic U.S. real estate and private companies are the best places to allocate capital right now, if you have a 50+-year time horizon.”
- Tax incentives. Real estate offers ways to defer taxes, sometimes indefinitely.
“Real estate is a super tax efficient asset to invest in,” Adams says. “The tax code is a series of incentives and disincentives. They really want you to own your own home, be married, have kids, and buy commercial real estate. It’s a super powerful investment vehicle for families, and that’s historically why they have liked it so much.”
*Community connection. For the Mathile family, it’s important that their new investment strategy offer the opportunity to have a positive impact on communities. Real estate is an obvious avenue.
They are starting to look at real estate opportunities in the area where the family has traditionally been based, southwest Ohio, but will also look at other communities that present good investment opportunities. Community-based investment also offers a way to become involved with new communities.
“This is where we can touch and see the impact, and understand the geographies and communities,” Mahoney says. “Outside of southwest Ohio, this area that we know best, we certainly want to find opportunities to impact new communities as the family spreads out.”
- Family engagement. Investing where family members live is one way to keep new generations of family members engaged.
“For families that no longer have an operating company, it’s really hard to keep the family together if it’s only about a corpus of liquid assets,” Adams says. “Buying and investing in private businesses and real estate is a really good way to build a narrative and continue a legacy.”
Mahoney said for the Mathile family, they are thinking creatively about finding investments that will build the family’s wealth while also engaging the family. They are starting with just a few investments in multifamily residential developments and commercial real estate. For the multifamily developments, they are an investment partner, with no current plans to manage the developments.
“We’re relying pretty heavily on partners that are experts in development and managing assets going forward,” Mahoney says.
For now, they are starting slowly – and it is still early in their journey.
“We’ve been intentionally taking small steps as we build this out,” Mahoney says. “We’re trying to lay out the framework. We have seen opportunities to make some investments to make some of this more tangible and find good partners.”