Family-office Lombard lending.
Credit arranged within a family's trust, holding, or succession structure — for diversification, downstream deployment, and bridging a generational transfer.
Family-office Lombard lending is private credit arranged within a family's trust, holding-company, or succession structure, secured by a pledge of the family's listed securities. The office draws liquidity against the diversified book it already owns — to diversify further, to fund new commitments, or to bridge a transfer between generations — while the core portfolio stays invested and keeps compounding. It is a loan, not a disposal, so the family's long-term positions and their tax basis remain untouched.
- A family office can raise cash against its listed book without selling positions the family intends to hold for the long term.
- A diversified, multi-line portfolio typically supports a more favourable loan-to-value than any single concentrated holding.
- The borrower and pledgor are the entities that hold title — a trustee, holding company, or SPV — acting within their governing documents.
- Common uses are diversification away from a concentrated legacy position, downstream deployment into new investments, and bridging liquidity across a succession event.
- Recourse and tenor are calibrated to the family's asset-protection preferences and its deployment horizon.
Why a family office uses Lombard credit
A family office manages patient capital, and its instinct is to hold. That instinct sits awkwardly with three recurring needs. The first is diversification: a family whose wealth grew from one business is often over-exposed to a single legacy holding, and wants to spread risk without selling the position that built the fortune. The second is deployment: the office sees an opportunity — a co-investment, a private-market commitment, a real asset — and would rather borrow against the listed book than liquidate it to fund the cheque. The third is timing: liquidity is needed at a moment when selling is unattractive, whether because of market conditions, a tax year, or a family event. A Lombard loan answers all three by releasing cash against the portfolio while leaving the portfolio in place.
Structuring within a trust or holding structure
The distinctive work in a family-office facility is fitting it to the family's existing architecture. The securities are rarely held in a single personal name; they sit in trusts, holding companies, or special-purpose vehicles, often across more than one jurisdiction. The borrower and the pledgor are the entities that hold legal title, and their authority to borrow and to grant security has to be confirmed against the trust deed or the constitutional documents before anything is signed. Where the deed requires it, trustee resolutions and beneficiary considerations are addressed with the family's own counsel. The facility is documented to respect the governance the family has already built, not to cut across it — and confidentiality, always important to a family office, is preserved throughout.
Calibration and portfolio effects
A family book is usually the most favourable kind of collateral, because it is diversified. Spreading the pledge across many liquid, large-capitalisation names lets a lender value and, if ever necessary, realise the collateral with confidence, which supports a higher loan-to-value than a single concentrated position would command. Holdings scattered across several custodians can be consolidated into one collateral pool, each line assessed on its own liquidity and volatility. Recourse is chosen to match the family's appetite for asset protection: a structure that ring-fences other family assets is common where the priority is to insulate the wider estate. Tenor is set to the purpose — a deployment facility is sized to the horizon of the investment it funds — and pricing follows the usual reference-rate-plus-spread pattern, with no rate card. For families managing a generational transfer, a facility can bridge the liquidity a succession event demands without forcing a sale at the wrong moment.
Want an indicative range for a family book?
Open the LTV calculator →Structuring at a glance
| Holder | Single- and multi-family offices holding listed securities through trusts, holding companies, or SPVs. |
|---|---|
| Objective | Diversify, deploy into new investments, or bridge a succession event without selling the core book. |
| Collateral | A diversified, multi-line securities portfolio; consolidation across custodians supported. |
| Borrower | The title-holding entity — trustee, holding company, or SPV — acting within its governing documents. |
| Recourse | Calibrated to the family's asset-protection preferences, frequently ring-fencing the wider estate. |
| Tenor | Matched to purpose — typically 12–36 months, renewable — and to the deployment horizon. |
| Confidentiality | The engagement is private throughout; the family's existing governance is respected, not displaced. |
Related use cases.
Concentrated single-stock liquidity
Release capital from a concentrated single-name position to diversify, without selling.
Read →Controlling-shareholder financing
Liquidity without disturbing voting control, the register, or a takeover-code position.
Read →Founder Lombard loans
Liquidity against locked-up or insider-restricted founder equity, without selling.
Read →Family-office facilities, answered.
Q · 01Who is the borrower when a family office pledges through a trust?
Q · 02Can a single Lombard facility span several portfolios or custodians?
Q · 03Can the facility fund new investments rather than personal spending?
Discuss a family-office facility, in confidence, with a principal.
Request terms →