When Dallas billionaire Darwin Deason sold Affiliated Computer Services to Xerox for $6.4 billion in 2010, he already had the beginnings of what would become one of the most powerful tools of the ultrawealthy: a family office. What started as a single person sitting in an office next to him at ACS headquarters, handling personal matters and paying bills, evolved into Deason Capital Services, an eight-employee investment machine based in Dallas’ exclusive Old Parkland campus. Today, the office oversees a sprawling portfolio that includes stakes in Dallas Capital Bank, Texas-based Adams Extract and Spice, and Great American Media, a Christian-focused media company. The transformation of the Deason office from a back-office administrative function into a sophisticated investment firm mirrors a broader trend among the world’s richest families, who increasingly use these private operations to quietly deploy billions into private deals, early-stage companies, and direct investments that never surface in public markets.
The scale of this activity is staggering, particularly in North Texas, which has emerged as one of the nation’s premier hubs for family offices. Roughly 190 Dallas-area family offices deployed an estimated $19.2 billion in 2024 alone, according to Praxis Rock Advisors, covering everything from artificial intelligence and real estate to oil and gas, television networks, and spice companies. Because single-family offices are designed to support only family members, they are exempt from registering as investment advisers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, allowing them to operate largely outside public view. “The average reader probably doesn’t understand how large the family office world is in the D-FW area and their investing impact, because it goes completely under the radar unless they happen to be publicized,” said Evan Hall, a Texas-based partner at the law firm Haynes Boone. FINTRX, a private wealth intelligence platform, has identified 137 family offices in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and 248 across Texas, out of nearly 2,400 nationwide, though many remain impossible to track publicly.
The appeal is drawing in a new generation of wealth creators. Jake Paul, the 29-year-old influencer and boxer, started his own family office earlier this year after meeting high-net-worth individuals in his early twenties and realizing he needed a centralized system to manage his growing empire. He hired Wall Street veteran Laura Brady to set it up and hopes to plant the operation in Old Parkland, the same exclusive Dallas campus where the Deason office and other prominent family offices are based. The cluster effect is no accident. North Texas has developed a reputation as a place where family offices team up on major deals, pooling resources and expertise in ways that amplify their already considerable power. Fort Worth estate planning attorney Marvin Blum noted that the concept barely existed a generation ago. “I went to law school 50 years ago. There was no such thing as a family office. No one ever used that terminology,” he said.
Not everyone views the rise of family offices with enthusiasm. While single-family offices can be subject to some reporting regulations even without SEC registration, critics argue that the exemption is increasingly out of step with reality as these operations mirror sophisticated investment firms managing billions of dollars. Allison Tait, a law professor at the University of Richmond, warned that the lack of oversight creates blind spots. “There’s a lot of potential for harm to be done because there are these things that people aren’t tracking on the market,” she said. As wealth continues to concentrate and more families establish these operations across Texas, New York, Los Angeles, and Florida, the tension between the privacy that family offices cherish and the transparency that regulators and watchdogs demand is likely to intensify, shaping the future of an industry that has quietly become one of the most influential forces in American investing.