Campden study: one in three surveyed Benelux family offices set up in past five years

One in three of the family offices surveyed for the Benelux Family Office Report 2025 were set up in the past five years, according to publisher Campden Wealth. That figure covers the offices that took part in the study, not the region's family office population as a whole.

Van Lanschot Kempen Private Banking produced the report with Mercier Van Lanschot and Campden Wealth, based on in-depth interviews and surveys with 59 Dutch and Belgian family offices located in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. With 59 respondents, the findings describe only the participating offices.

The average participating family office holds €1,393 million in total wealth, and €654 million in assets under management once the value of operating businesses is excluded. The release describes the group as supporting entrepreneurial businesses through direct investment.

Private equity is the stated priority. The release characterises the offices as active, long-term investors whose professionalisation is showing up in governance. Wendy Winkelhuijzen, a member of the management board of Van Lanschot Kempen, said the conversations surfaced "the high percentage of first-generation owners, increasing leadership roles for external professionals, and a strong focus on private equity investments." The release adds that respondents see more to be done on investment complexity, technology adoption and preparing younger generations.

More than half of the participants expect control to pass to the next generation within the coming decade, while 70% engage in philanthropy and 40% in impact investing.

For an allocator reading the study, the useful detail is the mix rather than the count. A segment skewed toward first-generation owners, still building governance and naming private equity as the priority, describes an investor base making its first institutional commitments — which is a different sales and diligence problem from an established office with a decade of manager relationships behind it. Campden does not break out how the 59 respondents divide between the Netherlands, Belgium and the three other jurisdictions named, so the geographic reading stays general.

The release does not state how assets under management are distributed across the participating offices, and an average of €654 million excluding operating businesses can sit above a long tail of much smaller offices. Van Lanschot Kempen and Mercier Van Lanschot commissioned the work; the release does not say whether respondents were clients of either firm.