Lauder Family: Is there a single family office?

Where does the fortune of the Lauder family come from?

The build-up of the Lauder Family’s fortune can be traced back to 1946 when Esteé Lauder and her husband Joseph Lauder founded the now world-leading cosmetics company “Esteé Lauder”. The firm is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of prestige skincare, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products. The company owns a diverse portfolio of brands, including MAC, Clinique, and Bobbi Brown. The six family members that are still alive together own 40% of Esteé Lauder and have a total net worth of 23 billion U.S. dollars, making them one of the richest families in the United States.

How did the Lauder family business develop?

Estee Lauder started out selling homemade skin creams to women in hairdressing salons. After a while, she and her husband founded the Esteé Lauder company in New York in 1946. They started with just four products: Cleansing Oil, Skin Lotion, Super Rich All-Purpose Creme and Creme Pack. Two years later, they opened their first department store in Manhattan. Over the next 15 years, they expanded the range and continued to sell their products in the United States. In 1960, the company opened its first international office in London, and the following year opened an office in Hong Kong. In 1968, the company expanded again with the launch of Clinique, an allergy-tested, fragrance-free cosmetics brand developed by dermatologists. In 1998, Estée Lauder acquired MAC Cosmetics. Today, the company has sales of nearly $15 billion and employs more than 22,000 people worldwide.

Is there a Lauder family office?

Yes, there is. “Lauder Partners”, based in Menlo Park, California, serves as the private investment vehicle of Gary Lauder, the grandson of Esteé Lauder.

How does the Lauder family office invest?

Lauder Partners, a single family office, focuses on early-stage venture capital investments in US and Canadian companies, with an emphasis on the Silicon Valley region. Preferred industries include information technology, life sciences, internet technology, food, and transportation. One example of an investment made last month is “SpinLaunch”. SpinLaunch is a stealth space catapult startup that aims to create a much cheaper and sustainable way to launch things like satellites from Earth into space without chemical fuel. Using a catapult would bypass the heavy fuel and expensive booster rockets used by companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. The company plans to use a centrifuge that spins at incredible speeds in a vacuum, reducing friction. All that momentum is then used to catapult a payload into space at speeds that one source says could be around 3,000 miles per hour.

This article is part of our detailed report “The single family offices of the richest US families“.

Picture source: Jamie Street

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