The descendants of Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf have pooled their investment operations through Perpetual, a Munich-based family office created in 2015. It manages assets in the single-digit billions for about 90 family members, as well as nearly 100 external investors. The family’s own wealth is not publicly known.
The family’s financial assets are held separately from Rolex through several family foundations. Perpetual’s model is intended to preserve their value across generations while giving individual relatives flexibility to meet different financial needs. It offers five funds: two investing in global stocks and bonds, and three focused on private equity, private credit and infrastructure. The funds are the same for all family members, but each person can choose their own allocation.
The two traditional funds have different risk profiles, with equity allocations of about 35% and 65%. Relatives who need easier access to their money can favor the more liquid options, while those with longer investment horizons can allocate more to private markets. Since 2023, Perpetual’s private-market funds have also been available to outside investors. Managing director Kübel says an investment of at least €1 million makes sense for new investors.
Perpetual’s approach draws on the endowment model used by US universities such as Yale and Harvard, whose investment funds aim to cover ongoing expenses while maintaining purchasing power for future generations. About 65% of Perpetual’s managed assets are invested across its three private-market funds. Investment chief Christian Wiehenkamp says investors may receive an illiquidity premium in exchange for giving up access to their money at short notice.
The funds also include less conventional assets. Perpetual’s credit investments include aircraft leasing and music rights, with royalties from streaming and radio plays providing recurring income. Its infrastructure investments include cold-storage facilities, buses used for rail-replacement services and a portfolio of rescue and firefighting helicopters in southern France and Spain, made through an external manager.
Perpetual relies on outside managers for expertise and access to specialist investments. It also seeks to diversify by considering the underlying risks of its holdings, rather than relying only on broad asset-class labels. For example, investing in equity and lending to similar companies could expose two funds to the same business risks.
Over the three years described in the report, the liquid portfolio with 65% in equities and 35% in bonds performed best, returning nearly 15% annually. Wiehenkamp said that was well above his long-term expectation of 7% a year. The credit fund returned nearly 10% annually over the same period, slightly above its target and marginally ahead of private equity. He cautioned that such outcomes require investors to withstand downturns, including the possibility of a 20% annual decline in the equity-focused mixed fund.
Sources: Handelsblatt.