Family office buyer versus private equity buyer
Almost everything written about this is written by somebody who gets paid on the answer.
I do not get paid if you sell, and I am not a buyer. So here is the version with the marketing taken out, including the part where the story family offices tell about themselves does not match the data.
The claim you will hear
Search this and you will find it quickly: family offices hold for 10 to 30 years, sometimes permanently. Private equity has a fund with a clock. Sell to the family office and your company stays intact forever.
The first half is roughly true. The second half is mostly marketing.
What the data actually shows
Private equity hold periods, and these are well documented because PE reports exits:
So call it five to seven years, and currently stretching because the exit market has been difficult.
Family office hold periods are the interesting part, because almost nobody measures them. The Wharton Family Office Survey 2024 wave is the best public data I have found on direct investments:
Read those numbers against the pitch.
85% of family office direct investments are gone inside ten years. 30% are gone in three to five, which is the same window private equity operates in.
The "we hold forever" families are real. They are 15% of the set. If you sell to a family office assuming you are in that 15%, you are making a bet on something nobody verified for you.
Ask the specific family, not the category. How many companies have you bought, how many have you sold, and how long did you hold the ones you sold. A family office that actually holds will answer that in ten seconds and be pleased you asked. One that cannot answer it is quoting the same marketing you read.
What is genuinely different, and it is not the hold period
1. Whose money it is. A PE firm answers to limited partners who committed to a fund with a defined life. A family office answers to a family. That is a real structural difference and it shows up in how they behave when something goes wrong in year three. The PE firm has a clock and reporting obligations. The family has a conversation at Thanksgiving.
2. Flexibility on structure. This is the biggest practical difference and it is underrated. A family office can do a deal that does not fit a standard fund model. Minority position, no board control, seller note, royalty, a structure built around your tax situation. A fund usually cannot, not because they are unwilling but because the fund documents and the LP expectations do not bend.
3. Speed and process. Family offices are often slower to decide and faster to close. PE is the reverse. Neither is better and both will frustrate you in different ways.
4. Operating support. PE firms generally have more of it, and it is more systematized. A family office may bring one extraordinary person or nobody at all. Ask who specifically will be in your business and how often.
5. Deal size. Family offices in the lower middle market average around $12.4 million of enterprise value per closed deal, which puts them at the upper end of that market. If you are a $40 million company, the family office buyer pool is thinner than the PE pool, and that affects your leverage more than anything on this page.
The comparison table, with the honest version in the right column
So which one
I am not going to tell you, and anyone who tells you without knowing your situation is guessing or selling.
What I will say is that the question is usually framed wrong. It is not "which type of buyer." It is "which specific buyer, and what does their actual track record say about the thing I care most about."
If what you care about is that your name stays on the building and your people keep their jobs, that is not a category question. It is a question about one family or one firm, and it is answerable. Ask for three owners they bought from and call all three. The ones worth selling to will hand you the list.
If nobody will give you the list, you have your answer.