Global Family Office Report 2025 Reveals Shifting Priorities Across Wealth Structures

Nearly 300 family office principals and senior decision-makers contributed to Ocorian's 2025 Global Family Office Report, producing granular cross-jurisdictional surveys of the sector to date. The findings arrive at a moment when family offices across Asia-Pacific are navigating compressed public-market returns, tightening regulatory frameworks from Singapore's Monetary Authority (MAS) to Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), and mounting pressure from next-generation principals who expect both financial performance and measurable impact. For any principal running a single-family office or evaluating a multi-family office structure, the data in this report functions as a benchmark — not background reading.

The report identifies seven structural themes that are reshaping how family offices allocate capital, build governance frameworks, and plan for succession. What makes this year's findings particularly significant is the convergence of operational stress and strategic ambition: offices are simultaneously professionalising their back-office functions and expanding into illiquid alternatives. That combination creates both opportunity and execution risk, especially for smaller offices operating below the S$50 million AUM threshold that typically triggers full institutional infrastructure.

Alternatives Allocation Climbs as Public Market Confidence Wavers

striking data points in the Ocorian report is that 68% of family offices surveyed plan to increase their allocation to private markets over the next 24 months. Private equity, private credit, and real assets collectively now represent the largest single allocation category for offices with AUM above US$500 million. This shift is not incidental — it reflects a deliberate rebalancing away from listed equities, where valuation dispersion and geopolitical volatility have eroded conviction among principals who built wealth through concentrated operating businesses rather than portfolio construction.

Within alternatives, private credit has emerged as a particular focus. Approximately 41% of respondents flagged direct lending and structured credit as priority growth areas, drawn by floating-rate income profiles and shorter duration relative to infrastructure or buyout funds. For Asia-Pacific offices, this trend intersects with the region's deepening private credit, where Singapore-domiciled Variable Capital Companies (VCCs) and Hong Kong's Open-ended Fund Companies (OFCs) now offer structurally efficient wrappers for illiquid credit strategies. The VCC framework, administered under MAS oversight, allows a single umbrella to house multiple sub-funds with segregated liabilities — a meaningful advantage when a family office wants to ring-fence a direct lending sleeve from its venture or real estate exposure.

Real assets, including infrastructure debt and agricultural land, attracted renewed interest from 34% of respondents, with family offices citing inflation-hedging characteristics and long-duration cash flows as primary motivations. The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has positioned itself as a structuring hub for Middle East and South Asian family offices accessing these strategies, with its foundation and holding company regimes offering flexible ownership layering.

"68% of family offices surveyed plan to increase private markets allocation over the next 24 months — a structural rebalancing that will test operational capacity as much as investment conviction." — Ocorian 2025 Global Family Office Report

Governance and Succession: Where Intentions and Structures Diverge

The report exposes a persistent gap between governance intention and governance infrastructure. While 74% of respondents described succession planning as a top-three strategic priority, only 38% had a formally documented succession framework in place. That 36-percentage-point gap is not new — it has appeared in similar surveys for several years — but the Ocorian data adds granularity: offices in their first generation of professional management are significantly more likely to have documented frameworks than those transitioning from a founder-led model to a second-generation structure.

The founder-to-G2 transition remains the highest-risk governance moment for any family office, and the data suggests that risk is being systematically underestimated. Common failure modes include undefined decision-making authority between family council and investment committee, absence of a family constitution or charter, and over-reliance on a single trusted adviser whose departure can destabilise the entire operating model. MAS has increasingly flagged governance quality as a factor in its enhanced supervisory engagement with family offices operating under the Section 13O and Section 13U tax incentive schemes in Singapore, making documentation not merely good practice but a regulatory expectation.

Next-generation engagement emerged as a related pressure point. Forty-four percent of respondents cited difficulty integrating G2 and G3 family members into meaningful roles without creating operational conflict. The report recommends structured apprenticeship models — where next-gen members shadow investment committee deliberations before taking voting rights — as a pragmatic bridge between inclusion and accountability.

Regulatory Compliance Costs Are Rising — and Reshaping Jurisdictional Choices

Compliance expenditure increased for 61% of family offices surveyed in 2024, with the average compliance budget rising by approximately 18% year-on-year for offices managing between US$250 million and US$1 billion. The drivers are well understood: enhanced AML/CFT obligations, beneficial ownership reporting requirements, and the expanding scope of economic substance rules across key booking centres. What the Ocorian data makes clear is that compliance cost is now a material input into jurisdictional selection, not an afterthought.

Singapore continues to attract the largest share of new family office formations in Asia-Pacific, supported by MAS's clear regulatory architecture and the VCC's operational flexibility. However, the report notes that the 13O scheme's minimum AUM threshold of S$10 million at the point of application — and the requirement to deploy at least S$10 million into qualifying Singapore investments within two years — is creating a two-tier market. Larger, well-resourced offices find the requirements manageable; smaller single-family offices are increasingly evaluating whether the tax incentive justifies the compliance overhead.

Hong Kong's OFC structure, regulated by the SFC, is gaining traction for family offices with significant Greater China exposure, particularly those managing assets across public and private markets. The OFC's ability to re-domicile from offshore jurisdictions without triggering a taxable event has made it a practical tool for offices consolidating fragmented legacy structures. Meanwhile, DIFC continues to attract family offices with Middle Eastern and South Asian principals, offering a common-law framework, zero personal income tax, and a growing of institutional co-investors and fund managers.

Talent Scarcity and the Professionalisation Imperative

Fifty-seven percent of respondents identified talent acquisition and retention as a significant operational challenge — a figure that has increased from 49% in the prior year's equivalent survey. The competition for experienced investment professionals, risk officers, and family governance specialists has intensified as the number of licensed family offices in Singapore alone grew by more than 30% between 2021 and 2023, according to MAS data. Supply of qualified candidates has not kept pace with demand, and family offices — which typically cannot match the compensation structures of large asset managers — are being forced to compete on culture, autonomy, and mission.

The report identifies a structural solution gaining adoption: the outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) model, used by 29% of respondents to supplement internal teams. For offices below US$300 million in AUM, the OCIO model offers access to institutional-grade portfolio construction and manager selection without the fixed cost of a full internal investment team. The trade-off is reduced customisation and potential conflicts of interest where the OCIO also manages third-party capital — a risk that principals should address through explicit mandate documentation and regular performance attribution reviews.

Strategic Takeaways for Family Office Principals

1. Audit your alternatives exposure against operational capacity. A 68% intention to increase private markets allocation is only value-accretive if the office has the due diligence infrastructure, legal resource, and liquidity modelling to manage illiquid positions responsibly.
2. Close the governance documentation gap now. With MAS scrutinising 13O and 13U scheme compliance more closely, a family constitution, investment policy statement, and documented succession plan are no longer optional — they are baseline expectations.
3. Evaluate VCC and OFC structures on their operational merits, not just tax efficiency. The sub-fund segregation and re-domiciliation features of these vehicles offer genuine structural advantages for multi-strategy family offices.
4. Build a compliance budget that reflects the true cost of your jurisdictional footprint. An 18% year-on-year increase in compliance spend is a planning assumption, not an anomaly.
5. Treat next-gen integration as a governance project, not an HR exercise. Structured apprenticeship models with defined milestones reduce the risk of disruptive G2 transitions.
6. Stress-test your talent model against a key-person departure scenario. Whether that means formalising OCIO arrangements or cross-training internal staff, single points of failure in a small team carry disproportionate operational risk.

What to Watch: Forward-Looking Signals for 2025 and Beyond

Several developments will materially affect family office strategy in the near term. MAS is expected to publish updated guidance on family office governance standards under the Variable Capital Companies Act framework in the second half of 2025, potentially raising the bar for internal controls documentation. The SFC's ongoing review of the OFC regime may introduce new sub-fund reporting requirements that affect offices using the structure for private credit or real asset strategies. In the DIFC, the DIFC Authority is consulting on amendments to its foundation law that would give principals greater flexibility in structuring charitable and philanthropic sub-entities alongside commercial holding structures.

Philanthropic strategy is itself an emerging allocation theme: 52% of respondents in the Ocorian report said they expected to formalise their philanthropic activities within a dedicated vehicle over the next three years. For Asia-Pacific principals, this intersects with the growing availability of donor-advised fund structures in Singapore and the expansion of impact-linked private credit instruments that allow philanthropic and commercial capital to operate within a single mandate. Principals who begin structuring their philanthropic intent now — rather than retrofitting it onto an existing holding structure — will have significantly more flexibility in how they deploy capital across both dimensions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the minimum AUM required to qualify for Singapore's Section 13O family office tax incentive?

Under MAS guidelines, the Section 13O scheme requires a minimum fund size of S$10 million at the point of application, with a commitment to grow assets under management to S$20 million within two years. The office must also deploy at least S$10 million into qualifying Singapore investments and employ a minimum number of investment professionals based in Singapore. Requirements were tightened in 2023 and principals should verify current thresholds directly with MAS or a licensed fund administrator.

How does a Variable Capital Company differ from a traditional Singapore fund structure?

A VCC is a corporate entity specifically designed for investment funds under the Variable Capital Companies Act, administered by MAS. Unlike a standard private limited company, a VCC can issue and redeem shares at net asset value without the capital reduction procedures required under the Companies Act. It can operate as a standalone fund or an umbrella with multiple sub-funds, each with segregated assets and liabilities. This makes it particularly efficient for family offices running multiple strategies or asset classes within a single governance structure.

What are the main risks of increasing private markets allocation for a family office?

The primary risks are illiquidity, valuation opacity, and operational complexity. Private market investments typically lock up capital for seven to ten years, which can create cash flow mismatches if the family office has near-term liquidity obligations — for example, supporting a business acquisition or funding a philanthropic commitment. Valuation is mark-to-model rather than mark-to-market, which can obscure true portfolio risk. Operationally, managing a diversified private markets book requires legal, compliance, and portfolio monitoring capabilities that many smaller offices have not yet built.

How should a family office approach next-generation succession planning?

Best practice involves three parallel workstreams: legal and structural (updating trust deeds, shareholder agreements, and power of attorney arrangements), governance (establishing a family council with defined decision rights and an investment committee with documented voting procedures), and developmental (creating structured roles for next-gen members that build genuine competency before granting fiduciary authority). The Ocorian report recommends beginning this process at least five years before an anticipated transition, and engaging an independent family governance adviser to facilitate conversations that internal family dynamics can make difficult.

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