Bell Family Office is the family-office service of Bond Bell & Co LLC, a registered investment adviser in Indiana, California, and Texas. The tier is offered by invitation. Other clients of Bond Bell & Co are served through the firm's conventional advisory practice.
The family office operates from a single office in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The principal, Bond Bell, works directly with each family-office client. The firm accepts new family-office engagements only through introduction or by direct invitation.
The work is the management of capital and the coordination of counsel for families who think in generations. This includes the drafting of trust instruments, the management of investment portfolios, the coordination of tax counsel and estate attorneys, and the slow patient work of being present through the meetings and decisions that shape how capital passes from one generation to the next.
The family office charges an annual retainer, not a percentage of assets. The retainer is set by the complexity of the engagement, not by the size of the portfolio. This structure removes the most common conflict in the category and clarifies what clients are actually paying for: drafting, coordination, and attention.
Bond Bell founded Bond Bell & Co and offers the Bell Family Office service to a small number of families. He lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The firm's Form ADV, on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, contains the principal's employment history and credentials.
The firm's thinking is informed by a small number of writers and traditions. Among them: Peter Bernstein on risk; Charles Ellis on endowments; Edmund Burke on inheritance; Deirdre McCloskey on the ethics of capital; and the annual letters of Howard Marks. The firm is not an investment manager in the conventional sense, and the list reflects that.