Global Family Office Report 2025: What the Data Reveals About Priorities Worldwide

Seventy-three percent of family offices globally plan to increase their allocation to alternative assets over the next two years, according to Ocorian's 2025 Global Family Office Report — a finding that carries immediate strategic weight for principals across Asia-Pacific who are already navigating compressed public-market returns and a structurally higher interest-rate environment. The report, drawn from a broad cross-section of single-family offices (SFOs) and multi-family offices (MFOs) spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, surfaces a set of convergent pressures that are forcing governance, succession, and allocation decisions to the top of every principal's agenda. For principals managing structures under the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong, or the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) regulatory framework, the data is not abstract — it maps directly onto decisions that must be made in the next twelve to twenty-four months.

If you are a principal or chief investment officer at a regional SFO or MFO, the Ocorian findings matter because they benchmark your office against peers globally at a moment when regulatory requirements, next-generation expectations, and geopolitical fragmentation are all accelerating simultaneously. Understanding where the global consensus is forming — and where Asia-Pacific family offices diverge from it — is itself a competitive advantage. This analysis distils the most operationally relevant findings and maps them against the regulatory and structural realities that define the region.

Alternatives Allocation: Where the Capital Is Moving

The 73% figure on alternatives is the headline number, but the composition matters as much as the direction. Private equity — including co-investments alongside lead sponsors — remains the dominant vehicle, cited by the majority of respondents as their primary alternatives exposure. Private credit has moved from a tactical to a structural allocation for a significant cohort, with many offices targeting between 10% and 20% of total AUM in direct lending, mezzanine, and asset-backed strategies. Real assets, including infrastructure and farmland, are growing in relevance as inflation-hedging instruments, particularly among offices with multi-generational time horizons.

For Asia-Pacific offices, the structural vehicle question is inseparable from the allocation question. Singapore's Variable Capital Company (VCC) framework, administered by MAS, has emerged as the preferred wrapper for holding private market positions, with more than 1,000 VCCs incorporated since the structure's 2020 launch. The VCC's ability to ring-fence sub-funds, redeem shares without shareholder approval, and consolidate reporting across strategies makes it well suited to the multi-asset alternatives portfolios the Ocorian data describes. In Hong Kong, the Open-ended Fund Company (OFC) structure serves a comparable function under SFC oversight, though take-up has been slower. Principals who have not yet assessed whether their alternatives book benefits from a VCC or OFC wrapper are leaving both tax efficiency and operational clarity on the table.

The report also flags a meaningful increase in direct deal activity, with 41% of respondents indicating they have completed at least one direct private equity or private credit transaction without a fund intermediary in the past twelve months. This trend is particularly pronounced among larger family offices — those managing above USD 500 million in AUM — where the deal-sourcing infrastructure and legal capacity to execute proprietary transactions exist in-house. For mid-sized offices in the USD 100–500 million range, club deal structures and co-investment rights negotiated at the fund commitment stage are the more practical route to the same exposure.

Governance and Succession: The Structural Deficit Most Offices Share

Ocorian's report identifies governance as the single area where family offices most consistently underinvest relative to their stated priorities. Only 38% of respondents report having a fully documented investment policy statement (IPS) that has been reviewed within the last two years. Fewer still — just 29% — have a formal succession plan that has been stress-tested against a principal incapacity scenario. These are not abstract governance metrics; they are the exact documents that MAS and the SFC expect to see when conducting supervisory reviews of licensed family office structures, and their absence creates both regulatory and operational risk.

"Only 29% of family offices globally have a formal succession plan stress-tested against a principal incapacity scenario — a gap that regulators in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai are increasingly unlikely to overlook."

The succession deficit is compounded by generational dynamics. The report notes that 68% of family offices anticipate a significant wealth transfer event within the next decade, yet fewer than half of those offices have initiated structured next-generation engagement programmes. The gap between anticipated transfer and operational readiness is the defining governance risk for the current cohort of Asia-Pacific principals. Structures that work well for a founder-led office — concentrated decision-making, informal investment committees, relationship-driven deal flow — frequently fracture under the weight of a multi-branch family with divergent risk appetites and geographic footprints.

For offices domiciled in Singapore, MAS's Variable Capital Company framework includes provisions for governance documentation as part of the fund manager licensing process, creating a useful forcing function. In the DIFC, the Family Arrangements Regulations introduced in 2023 provide a formal legal mechanism for documenting family governance protocols, including succession and dispute resolution procedures. Principals who treat these regulatory requirements as compliance overhead rather than governance infrastructure are misreading the opportunity they represent.

Philanthropy, ESG, and the Next-Generation Agenda

The Ocorian report records a sharp increase in the formalisation of philanthropic activity, with 54% of respondents now operating a dedicated philanthropic vehicle — a donor-advised fund, charitable foundation, or impact-first investment mandate — compared with 39% in the equivalent 2023 survey. This is not purely a values-driven shift. In Singapore, charitable foundations structured under the Charities Act attract income tax exemptions and can be integrated with a VCC sub-fund to create a unified impact allocation alongside commercial returns. In Hong Kong, Section 88 charitable status under the Inland Revenue Ordinance provides comparable benefits. The formalisation of philanthropy is increasingly a tax and estate planning decision as much as a values one.

ESG integration — distinct from philanthropy — remains contested. The report finds that 61% of family offices apply some form of ESG screen to their public equity portfolios, but only 22% apply comparable screens to private market investments, where data quality and standardisation remain barriers. Next-generation family members are the primary internal driver of ESG adoption, and offices that have structured next-gen engagement programmes report higher rates of ESG policy formalisation. This creates a feedback loop: governance investment in next-gen programmes produces better ESG infrastructure, which in turn improves the office's ability to access impact-labelled co-investment opportunities from institutional managers who increasingly require alignment on these metrics.

Talent, Technology, and the Operating Model Under Pressure

Staffing costs have risen materially across the industry, with the report noting that compensation for senior investment professionals at family offices has increased by an estimated 18–22% over the past three years in major financial centres including Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai. This is partly a consequence of family offices competing directly with private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds for a limited pool of experienced alternatives professionals. The talent pressure is particularly acute for offices seeking to build in-house private credit or infrastructure capabilities, where specialist knowledge commands a significant premium.

Technology investment is accelerating in response, with 47% of respondents indicating they have implemented or are actively evaluating a dedicated family office management platform in the past eighteen months. Consolidated reporting — aggregating positions across listed securities, private funds, direct holdings, and real estate — is the most commonly cited use case. The offices that invest in consolidated reporting infrastructure now will be better positioned to meet the enhanced disclosure expectations that MAS, the SFC, and DIFC are progressively building into their supervisory frameworks. Regulatory reporting obligations for licensed family office structures in all three jurisdictions have increased in scope and frequency since 2022, and manual processes that were adequate for simpler portfolios are creating compliance risk at scale.

Key Strategic Takeaways for Asia-Pacific Principals

1. Audit your alternatives wrapper: Assess whether your private market holdings are optimally structured under a Singapore VCC or Hong Kong OFC, particularly if you are consolidating sub-strategies or managing co-investments alongside external GPs.
2. Close the governance documentation gap: Prioritise an IPS review and a formal succession stress-test. Both are regulatory expectations under MAS and SFC supervisory frameworks, not optional best practice.
3. Formalise next-gen engagement: Offices with structured next-generation programmes report better ESG integration, higher succession readiness, and lower inter-generational conflict. The investment is operational, not ceremonial.
4. Benchmark your philanthropy structure: If your charitable giving exceeds USD 1 million annually, a formal vehicle — charitable foundation, donor-advised fund, or impact sub-fund within a VCC — is likely to deliver material tax efficiency and governance benefits.
5. Invest in consolidated reporting now: The regulatory reporting burden across MAS, SFC, and DIFC jurisdictions will continue to increase. Offices that build consolidated reporting infrastructure proactively will absorb that burden more efficiently than those that retrofit it under deadline pressure.
6. Re-price your talent assumptions: Compensation benchmarks for senior alternatives professionals have moved 18–22% in three years. Offices that have not reviewed their compensation structures since 2021 risk losing institutional knowledge at the worst possible moment — during a period of elevated deal activity and governance transition.
7. Evaluate direct deal capacity honestly: The 41% of offices executing direct transactions without fund intermediaries is a meaningful cohort, but the capability requirements are significant. If your office lacks in-house legal and due diligence capacity, club deals and co-investment rights are the more appropriate route to direct exposure.

What to Watch: Forward-Looking Signals for 2025–2026

MAS is expected to publish updated guidance on family office licensing thresholds and enhanced due diligence requirements for Section 13O and 13U fund structures before the end of 2025, following the enhanced conditions introduced in August 2023. Principals whose structures were approved under the earlier, lighter-touch regime should be reviewing compliance posture now rather than waiting for formal notification. In Hong Kong, the SFC's ongoing review of the OFC framework is expected to include provisions making it easier to use the structure for private asset holding, which would meaningfully improve its competitiveness relative to the Singapore VCC for cross-border families with Greater China exposure. The DIFC's Family Wealth Centre, launched in 2024, is actively developing a structured programme for family office registration that is expected to include governance certification requirements — a development worth monitoring for offices with a Middle East nexus or Gulf-based beneficiaries.

The Ocorian 2025 Global Family Office Report does not prescribe a single model. What it does, with considerable granularity, is identify the distance between where most family offices currently operate and where the leading cohort has already arrived on governance, allocation, and operating model sophistication. For Asia-Pacific principals, the strategic implication is clear: the offices that will be best positioned in 2027 are the ones making structural investments — in governance documentation, reporting infrastructure, and next-gen engagement — in 2025, not the ones waiting for a crisis to force the issue. Commission a gap analysis against the Ocorian benchmarks, share the findings with your investment committee, and use the data to prioritise the two or three structural improvements that will have the highest compounding impact on your office's long-term resilience.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Ocorian 2025 Global Family Office Report say about alternatives allocation?

The report finds that 73% of family offices globally plan to increase their alternatives allocation over the next two years, with private equity, private credit, and real assets as the primary growth categories. Direct deal activity is also rising, with 41% of offices completing at least one direct transaction without a fund intermediary in the past twelve months.

How does the Singapore VCC compare to the Hong Kong OFC for holding private market assets?

Both structures allow ring-fenced sub-funds and consolidated reporting, but the VCC has seen significantly higher adoption, with over 1,000 incorporations since 2020. The OFC is under SFC review for enhancements that would improve its suitability for private asset holding, which may improve its competitiveness for families with Greater China exposure. The choice depends on the family's primary jurisdiction, beneficiary location, and the specific asset classes being held.

What governance documents do MAS and the SFC expect family offices to maintain?

Both regulators expect licensed family office structures to maintain a current investment policy statement, anti-money laundering and know-your-customer procedures, and documented conflict-of-interest policies. MAS's enhanced conditions for Section 13O and 13U structures, updated in 2023, also require local investment and local hiring thresholds, and annual reporting on compliance with those conditions.

How are family offices approaching philanthropy structurally in 2025?

The Ocorian report records that 54% of family offices now operate a formal philanthropic vehicle, up from 39% in 2023. In Singapore, charitable foundations under the Charities Act and impact sub-funds within a VCC offer tax efficiency alongside governance structure. In Hong Kong, Section 88 charitable status under the Inland Revenue Ordinance provides comparable benefits. Formalisation is increasingly driven by tax and estate planning logic as much as values alignment.

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