London’s super-rich are rushing to beef up governance procedures in their private investment and trust offices after lax practices in some institutions were exposed by the financial crisis.

More than 300 wealthy families, with assets of more than £100m each, have set up private offices in London in recent years to protect their wealth and manage family affairs such as staff and property. For long a fixture of the upper echelons of US society, family offices have come to the areas of Mayfair and St James’s in London in large numbers only in the past few years.