Markets Group Private Wealth Forums

Markets Group, a New York events company, runs allocator-focused forums across asset classes and regions. Its private wealth series is the largest single programme of family office and wealth manager events by number of dates: more than 30 a year, most of them one-day, closed-door forums held annually in the same city, plus a handful of three-day retreats. The Singapore edition has its own entry in this directory, Family Office and Private Wealth Asia Forum; this entry covers the rest of the series and lists their dates.

Who attends

Each forum mixes family offices with wealth managers, registered investment advisers, private banks and the fund selection teams that sit inside both, with asset managers and advisers on the other side of the room. The one exception in name is the UK Private Family Office Forum in London each November, which the organiser describes as a highly curated, closed-door day for family offices and wealth managers with panels, roundtables and private meetings.

These are allocator forums rather than family office peer groups. Families are a major part of the audience because Markets Group builds its events around who controls capital, but they sit alongside institutions doing the same job with different money. For an office that thinks of itself as an investor first, that is a feature: the questions put to managers are sharper than most family offices have the staff to ask. For a family that wants governance, succession or peer exchange, the series has little to offer.

How access works

Qualified investors and allocators register free, subject to Markets Group's approval; the organiser keeps separate contacts for allocator attendance and for sponsorship. Asset managers and service providers buy a pass or sponsor. Rates are set per forum and are not published on the series page; the Singapore forum's provider rate was US$3,000, which gives the order of magnitude. Popular forums close registration early.

What attendees get

A day of panels, interactive roundtables and private meetings on portfolio strategy, alternatives, private markets and, in the regional forums, the local market. The retreats (US spring and autumn, UK spring and autumn, Brazil, Latin America and Caribbean) run over three days at resort venues with more time for one-to-one meetings.

The breadth of cities is the series' real asset. An office in Charlotte, Denver, Scottsdale, Minneapolis, Toronto, Birmingham, Munich, Stockholm or Melbourne has a Markets Group forum within a short trip, often the only regular allocator event in the city. The list above holds every edition with a published day; forums announced by month only are left out until the organiser fixes the date.