Assets Under Management (AUM)
Last updated 17 July 2026
Assets under management, usually shortened to AUM, is the market value of assets that an investment manager, fund, or family office actively manages. It is widely used as a measure of scale, but the precise boundary depends on who is reporting it. One firm may count only discretionary portfolios, while another may include assets it advises on without making every investment decision.
AUM is also distinct from net worth. A family balance sheet may include an operating company, personal property, trusts, or collectibles that are not managed as part of an investment mandate. Conversely, an adviser may report assets for several clients that have no common ownership. Understanding the definition behind the number matters more than the headline alone.
Why it matters for family offices
For a family office, consolidated AUM provides a starting point for understanding investment scale, negotiating service terms, and setting governance. It can affect access to institutional share classes or specialist managers, and external providers often use it when calculating percentage-based fees. Regulatory treatment may also depend on jurisdiction, activity, client structure, and the assets included, so AUM should not be treated as a universal legal test.
The operational challenge is avoiding double counting and inconsistent valuation dates. A feeder vehicle may own an interest in a fund that is also shown elsewhere, or one report may use today's public prices while private investments use the previous quarter's fair values. Clear ownership mapping and a stated valuation date help turn AUM from an attractive but vague total into a useful control figure.
How it shows up in practice
Consider a family whose wealth is spread across three trusts, two holding companies, four custodians, and several private funds. One bank reports $120 million under management, but that number excludes direct property and includes a managed company account already consolidated through a trust. The family office reconciles ownership, removes the duplication, and identifies which assets are actively managed, merely administered, or held outside an investment mandate.
It can then present both the investment AUM and the broader family net worth, each with a clear scope. A spreadsheet may calculate the total, but maintaining the ownership links and valuation dates becomes difficult as structures change. A governed data set makes each number traceable to its source and definition.
Related terms
Assets Under Administration (AUAdmin)
The total value of assets for which a firm provides administrative services, such as custody, reporting, bookkeeping, and safekeeping, without making investment decisions. The measure captures operational rather than advisory scale. For family offices evaluating service providers, it indicates experience in handling reporting and administration at volume.
Assets Under Advisement (AUA)
The total value of client assets on which a firm provides advice, including assets it does not directly manage or hold. AUA is broader than AUM and is often quoted by multi-family offices and consultants whose role is advisory rather than discretionary. When comparing providers, families should ask precisely what a quoted figure includes.
Net Asset Value (NAV)
The value of an entity's or fund's assets minus its liabilities, representing what the holding is worth at a point in time. In private markets, NAVs are reported quarterly by fund managers and arrive with a lag. Family office reporting combines custodial market values with reported NAVs to build a complete picture of wealth.
Consolidated Reporting
The aggregation of all of a family's assets, liabilities, and performance, across every custodian, entity, currency, and asset class, into a single coherent set of reports. It answers the deceptively simple questions of what the family owns, what it is worth, and how it is performing. Consolidated reporting is the core deliverable of most family offices and the primary function of family office software.
Further reading
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