Scott Peppet - Building a Family-Focused Office for Sam Zell The Business of Family

Scott Peppet serves as the President of Chai Trust Company LLC, the private trust company that serves as the family office for Sam Zell and his family. Equity Group Investments, a division of Chai trust, provides investment management services on its behalf.


From 2000 to 2018, Scott was a professor of Law at the University of Chicago where he focused on Bargaining, Dispute Resolution, Translational Law, and the complexities of multigenerational family enterprises. Scott speaks regularly on Family Offices, Private Trust companies as well as Intergenerational Leadership while also maintaining an active website.


Scott is a G2 family member. He is Sam Zell's son-in-law, having married Sam's eldest daughter.


Standout Quotes:



"Business works on short wavelengths and family works on very long wavelengths" - [Peter Evans, Scott]
"What does it mean to try and help family members really develop and really take ownership, so they can figure out how to deploy what they have?" - [Scott]
"There are many different kinds of wealth… you probably aren't put on the earth to grow the financial capital, there's lots of professionals who can help you do that" - [Scott]
"Too often, the implicit message sent to family members is 'this system is really here to steward the money" - [Scott]
“Families rarely fail for taking too much risk, they fail for taking too little risk” - [Scott]
"My goal is to create a family-focused office, not a family office, and a trusted company, not a Trust company" - [Scott]
"If you want to succeed you have to have a family that understands what you're doing" - [Scott]


Key Takeaways:



Scott is the President of Chai Trust Company, LLC, the private trust company that serves as the family office for Sam Zell and his family. Equity Group Investments, a division of Chai trust, provides investment management services on its behalf. From 2000 to 2018, Scott was a professor of Law at the University of Chicago where he focused on Bargaining, Dispute Resolution, Translational Law, and the complexities of multigenerational family enterprises. He speaks on Family Offices, Private Trust companies as well as Intergenerational Leadership while also maintaining his active website. Scott is a G2 family member, as he is Sam Zell's son-in-law.
Scott got married to Sam's older daughter 20 years ago while he was already teaching as a Law professor. Since then he got increasingly curious about family enterprises till he fully transitioned into working in the family enterprise. After a few months of knowing each other, they started dating but Scott had no idea about her family wealth till she opened up about it.
About Sam Zell: Sam is a serial entrepreneur, who first built a business in Real Estate, following which he turned to distressed Corporate Investing in the 80s, and then in the 90s, he created some of the largest REITs in the US today. He has continued to work on REITs and corporate investing since then. He has done several businesses over the years. Sam is also known for his straight talk, always making his stand clear in any discussion. He is also very astute and broad in his thinking.
As a Law professor, Scott worked on conflict intervention with corporations all over the world. When he started having kids, he got curious about how the family wealth could be managed productively for the family, especially for the kids. Sam encouraged him to work on it. Some authors that stood out in Scott's study were Jay Hughes and John Davis.
Scott describes the family structure; at the time Scott joined the family, Sam was 59 years, his 3 children were in their 30s, and as of now, there are 9 grandchildren. There was a form of governance structure, a board with his 3 children which wasn't functional as Sam made most decisions. However, now there has been a need to rebuild the structure as the company has evolved and this has been a huge part of Scott's focus since he moved full-time into the family enterprise. He h