When the icemaker on William Cvengros’ refrigerator went on the blink, he didn’t call a repairman.
Instead, he called his family’s personal bookkeeper who manages everything from paying bills online to watching over the books of farmland that Cvengros owns.
A former chief executive of Newport Beach-based bond fund manager Pacific Investment Management Co., Cvengros didn’t want to deal with figuring out the warranty on his icemaker.
After several tries, his bookkeeper got the icemaker fixed.
“It sounds simple, but it’s not,” said Cvengros, who left Pimco in 2000.
Safi Qureshy, a founder of former Irvine computer maker AST Research Inc., has a family office of personal assistants who get his driver’s license renewed every few years or buy plane tickets.
They also manage his personal wealth and pick up his bills sent to a post office box.
“It frees me up to spend more time on my business affairs,” said the 55-year-old Qureshy, who lives in the hills above Tustin and is chief executive of Irvine-based Quar-tics LLC, a video chip designer.
What They Are
Family offices are common among Orange County’s wealthy, including The Irvine Company’s Donald Bren, Broadcom Corp.’s Henry Samueli and Quest Software Inc.’s Vinny Smith.
Family offices are a group of trusted advisers who coordinate personal finances, shop for luxury items, pay bills, mentor and provide anything else when fingers are snapped.
“We have a business manager who pays some of our bills and provides some bookkeeping,” Cvengros said. “We’ve got a lot of bills. They help us and a few other families.”
Cvengros now is chairman of National Retirement Partners Inc. in Capistrano Beach and at one time was vice chairman and chief investment officer at Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Insurance Co., which spawned Pimco.
Qureshy relies on Corporate Metrix, an Irvine company that oversees personal finances for about a dozen families in OC with a combined net worth of more than $3 billion. One is a billionaire, according to Jawad Ansari, chairman of Corporate Metrix.
The company offers a range of services. Ansari said he’s done everything from shopping for an island off Costa Rica to checking out the possibilities of investing in a Jamaica resort.
“I make sure they don’t get ripped off,” he said.
Ansari has set up offices in undisclosed spots for wealthy clients who’ll pay $50,000 or more to get their own space with banks of computers and staff for monitoring their holdings.
His own Irvine office is listed as a post office box.
“Nobody needs to know where our offices are,” Ansari said. “My clients want anonymity.”
Ansari is part investment manager, personal assistant and a point person who’ll work out a system to pay bills for clients online or put together a 50-page itinerary for a European vacation (which he’s done).
Ansari maintains a small army of private detectives who check out the backgrounds of drivers, gardeners, housekeepers and pilots.
“We get paid to be paranoid,” he said.
He got into running family offices 12 years ago after graduating with a degree in accounting from California State University, Fullerton. His first client was Qureshy, who was looking for someone to provide basic accounting.
Other clients include Bob Barron, who sold his networking company Chromatis Networks Inc. to Lucent Technologies Inc. in 2000, and Victor Tsao, cofounder of Cisco-Linksys LLC, a maker of home networking routers and other gear.
Tsao and wife Janie sold their company to Cisco Systems Inc. three years ago.
Rockefeller Roots
The definition of a family office varies. Nearly everyone agrees it grew out of rich East Coast families searching for accounting and investing staff to manage their personal fortunes.
Observers point to oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller in the early 1880s as the first to form the notion of a family office.
The expansion of family offices here is fueled mostly by new wealth from technology or real estate.
“These are first generation people,” said Patricia M. Soldano, president of Cymric Family Office Services in Costa Mesa.
Soldano said she mentors some younger family members, helping them decide what to study in college, or sometimes advises on a divorce, prenuptial agreements or estate planning.
In 1978, Soldano started working in the family office of Ted Field, a movie producer, former Newport Beach resident and heir to the Marshall Field’s department store fortune.
The University of California, Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business is planning a center for investment and wealth management that hopes to attract students who want to pursue careers in family offices, said Andrew Policano, the school’s dean.
“With all of the new wealth here on the West Coast earned from technology, real estate and medical fields, there’s a growing need for more family offices,” he said. “This is why we want to have the center.”
Advisers also guide clients through the philanthropy maze, often pointing them to the Orange County Community Foundation, a kind of “one-stop” shopping place for charitable causes.
Shelly Hoss, president of the Irvine-based community foundation, regularly gets phone calls from representatives of wealthy clients who are trying to figure out the philanthropy game.
“It takes a village to steward their assets,” Hoss said.
Robert J. Greenberg, principal with Greenberg, Graham Advisors LLC in Irvine, focuses most on financial investment advising.
“We’ve helped clients to set up their own personal offices when they retire,” Greenberg said.
But then there are times Greenberg gives a personal touch.
He said he once found a broker to buy a Porsche for the wife of a rich client who wanted to give the sports car to her husband on Christmas.
“It’s not something I want to spend my life doing, but it makes sense sometimes,” he said.
