A family office and a superyacht new build: decisions, authority and reports.

The Owner decides. A person the Owner authorises in writing may decide instead, for example in the family office, within the limits of that authorisation. Outside those limits, the decision returns to the Owner.

The decisions in question are those the Owner keeps in a new build. At the start, they are the choice of yard and the build contract; then the budget, the design choices, the variations, the payments, the contractual communications and the acceptance of the yacht. Each is prepared with the options, the evidence and a recommendation, and each is recorded with its rationale.

A family office may be where a new build starts to take shape, before any yard is approached. With the Owner, it can prepare:

• the brief: how and by whom the yacht will be used, and which priorities come first;
• the budget the Owner is prepared to commit;
• who will decide on the Owner’s side, and with what written authority;
• the advisers the project will need, starting with the Owner’s lawyers;
• the reports the family office will want, and on what cadence.

How to choose a shipyard sets out the steps that follow; the stages of a new build cover the work from the contract to the warranty period.

A written authorisation makes clear who may decide what, and it is easier to agree at the start than in the middle of a decision. Its wording is a matter for the Owner’s lawyers. It usually sets out:

• who is authorised, by name and role;
• which decisions they may take, for example on variations or payments;
• the limits of the authorisation, and what returns to the Owner;
• how and when the Owner is told of a decision taken under it;
• how long it lasts, and how it is changed.

The yard needs the same clarity. It is told in writing who represents the Owner and with what authority. An approval is a written decision, with its rationale, by someone with the authority to give it. A proposal, a quote, meeting minutes or silence is not an approval.

Which reports the family office receives is agreed in the mandate. Budgets, commitments and exposures are reported on an agreed cadence. The monthly report covers the work completed, the forecast dates against the baseline and the critical path; the budget, the commitments, the forecast final cost, the pending variations and the decisions due; and the inspections, open defects, main risks and coming tests.

The forecast final cost brings the figures together: what has been spent, plus what has been committed and not yet paid, plus the costs expected but not yet committed. It shows where the project is heading, not only what has been spent so far. How the budget and the forecast final cost work.

Each update states how current its sources are and where evidence is missing. The Owner, and the family office where the mandate provides, can then see how far a figure can be relied on before a decision is taken. Each monthly report also lists the decisions due, so that the family office can review them with the Owner before the decision.

The cadence is agreed in the mandate. In ASYA’s method the dashboard is kept up to date, the parties meet weekly for coordination and the Owner has a monthly review. Important issues are raised at once, with the options and their effects, without waiting for the next report.

Which of these the family office takes part in, and who in it receives each one, is part of the same agreement. The family office may join the monthly review, receive the monthly report, or both, as the mandate sets out.

Access is agreed for each mandate, together with the tools and the integrations behind the dashboard. In ASYA’s reporting, people verify the work before the Owner’s Representative releases it, and the Owner decides.

On the dashboard, financial figures are visible to the Owner only. The dashboard does not replace a formal communication or an approval: a decision is still taken, and recorded, in writing.

Governance here means knowing who decides, on what evidence, with what figures and with what record. ASYA works to four governance principles.

ASYA is an independent practice on the Owner’s side and receives no commission from yards or brokers.

Where there is a family office, the mandate turns these principles into practice: who decides, what is reported to whom and how each decision is recorded.

Outside the Owner and the yard, the project goes by a code name. Specialists sign a confidentiality undertaking before they receive any information, and there is no public mention, photograph or publicity of the project without the Owner’s written consent.

Within the family office, who may see the project information is agreed in the mandate, like access to the dashboard. The project’s data and documents remain the Owner’s, and they pass to the Owner in usable formats when the mandate ends.

ASYA represents the Owner of a superyacht at every stage, working alongside the family office. It gives the yard, the designers and the suppliers one point of coordination, and brings material decisions to the Owner with options and evidence. The family office keeps its own role for the family; ASYA’s work concerns the yacht and its project.

A family office often looks after the family’s wider affairs: its finances, its advisers and its other assets. In a new build it may receive the reports and hold written authority for some decisions, as the mandate sets out.

For a family office, the yacht project then has one point of coordination, accountable to the Owner.

A written mandate defines scope, timing and attendance before work begins. Where there is a family office, it also sets out:

• who decides, and who is authorised in writing, within what limits;
• who receives which reports, and on what cadence;
• who has access to the dashboard;
• confidentiality: who may see the project information;
• how decisions and their rationale are recorded, and how the records pass to the Owner when the mandate ends.

What to agree with an Owner’s Representative, and how ASYA works through a new build.

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