UBS Global Family Office Report 2025

NEWSLETTER

Family office insights this week:

• UBS family office report - comparing 2024 vs 2025

• Blackstone data on private markets

• An accurate depiction of private banking fees

• 10 summer reads for the wealthy

• A dark comedic take on the lives of the affluent

UBS Global Family Office Report 2025

How the world’s richest families are positioning for uncertainty

Why should we care what family offices are doing?

Because family offices shape markets and influence industries.

And they’re learning from each other faster than ever, tracking how peers allocate, hire, and adapt.

Understanding what’s happening in the family office world helps families safeguard and grow their wealth. And for service providers, real insight into how family offices think and operate is vital to staying relevant and effective in an increasingly competitive space.

This is why family office industry reports are important.

Now in its sixth edition, the UBS Global Family Office Report is one of the best.

This week we take a look at the report with a particular focus on the changes since last year.

The UBS report surveyed 317 family offices with $1.1B AUM on average. It’s a window into family office thinking - on asset allocation, risk, outsourcing, hiring, and more.

UBS conducted an online survey from January 22 to April 4 2025, but supplemented with additional interviews after President Trump launched his reciprocal tariff strategy.

Where the surveyed family offices are:

It’s worth noting upfront that the insights and data reflect very little change for family offices compared with last year’s report, which is unsurprising despite recent market upheavals. Family offices are playing the long game.

It’s a sentiment nicely summed up by UBS CIO for global family and institutional wealth, Maximilian Kunkel, on the UBS Bulletin podcast:

“Family offices are able to go through short-term noise in markets in a fairly disciplined manner.”

- Maximilian Kunkel, CIO for global family and institutional wealth, UBS

So what exactly has changed?

Family offices are holding less cash, allocating more to gold and precious metals, and have an increased regional interest in the Middle East. 

And their new primary concern is no longer geopolitical conflict, but the global trade war.

Key points of interest

Investing

• Only 35% of family offices surveyed intend to make changes to their asset allocation this year. 

• In emerging tech, family offices are most keen to invest in healthcare/medicine, electrification, and AI, but most lack a clear investment strategy for these.

• Only 16% have a clear investment strategy that includes blockchain and/or DeFi.

• 61% have an investment committee, and on average, these include three non-family members.

• Interest to pursue investment in the Middle East jumped from 5% in last year’s report to 13% this year.  

Risk management 

• The global trade war has replaced geopolitical risk as the primary concern. 

• Less than a third of family offices have risk management process for non-investment related areas such as reputation, medical, etc.

Outsourcing 

• Almost a third of family offices use outsourced providers for services rather than manage in-house. 

• Cost-effectiveness isn’t always the driver in outsourcing decisions - just 52% cite this as a factor.

Hiring

• Trust and personality are more important to family offices hiring than education and qualifications. Cultural fit remains paramount.

Succession 

• Just over half have a succession plan, yet less than a third consulted the next generation at the outset of formulating this plan
  

What changed compared to last year’s report?

Asset allocation

• Still almost evenly split between Public and Private, though Private is growing 42 - 44%.

• Private debt has doubled, as has gold and precious metals - though they remain small parts of portfolios. 

• Within the shrinking Public allocation, cash holdings are declining, while equities and fixed income are both on the rise.

Regional allocation

• Across all family offices surveyed, 53% of assets are in North America, even though only 13% of the surveyed family offices are US-based.

• Overall, almost 80% of assets are allocated to North America & western Europe.

• While US family offices have become more home-focused, it’s only a 5% shift - the biggest change is Western EU family offices reducing their home-based assets by more than 10%. 

Looking ahead (the next five years)

Asked about plans over the next five years, most family offices expect to increase allocations to equities in developed markets, which is consistent with last year.

Biggest shifts - notable decrease in family offices allocating to Fixed Income (developed markets), and notable increase to Gold/Precious metals.

The portion of family offices that plan to ‘stay the same’ across asset classes has increased across almost all asset classes.

It’s also interesting to compare the net shifts in allocation when looking at this “next five years” question in the last six UBS reports.

Looking at the regional plans over the next five years, Asia-Pacific (excluding Greater China) remains the top region where family offices plan to increase investments, unchanged from 2024.

The biggest change is increased interest in the Middle East: 13% of family offices plan to increase their investment in the region compared to 5% in last year’s report. And only 28% don’t plan to invest in the region at all, compared to 40% last year.

Risk

A global trade war has emerged as the number one concern for family offices this year, overtaking last year’s top worry: geopolitical conflict, which now ranks second.

And looking ahead, geopolitical tensions remain a dominant concern, but the prospect of a global recession has climbed in importance, pushing climate change further down the list of perceived risks.

This shift reflects growing anxiety around macroeconomic instability and political fragmentation.

Operating costs

Pure cost of running a family office is unchanged at 57% of overall operating costs. And staff costs are 67% of operating costs - just a 1% increase on last year. 

The biggest change is asset management costs going down from 24% last year to 21% this year.

Bottom line

The UBS report shows that while family offices may tweak their strategies at the margins, they’re not reacting to headlines. They’re playing the long game. In a volatile world, this patient capital continues to shape markets quietly but powerfully.

You can download the full UBS Global Family Office Report 2025 here.

𝕏 highlights

Two tweets from Blackstone this week. First, their take on PE:

And a great chart on asset performance (with some key assets missing).

Finally, the complexity of private banking fees.

 💼 where to work

The May Family Office Jobs newsletter hit your inboxes this week. Jobs included:

• Deputy Group CFO (London)

• Senior Portfolio Manager (Singapore)

• Senior Analyst (New York)

• Senior Analyst (New York)

• Chief Operating Officer (Remote)

Plus five outstanding family office candidates.

📚 what to read

This week, it’s not one recommendation this week, but 10!
JPMorgan’s summer reading list for the wealthy.

📻 what to listen to

There’s a theme this week! This episode of the Bulletin podcast with UBS discusses their Global Family Office Report

📺 what to watch

A fun one this week: In Your Friends & Neighbors, John Hamm (of Mad Men fame) portrays Andrew "Coop" Cooper, a disgraced hedge fund manager who, after losing his job and wealth, turns to burglary to support his lifestyle. A dark comedic take on the lives of the affluent.

And finally…

Last week’s newsletter was about how the wealthy design their lives (or fail to). A key factor in life design is where you spend your work days. I’d like to hear from family offices about their working model:

Monday’s Family Office Buzz looked at the best family office content from around the world - particularly popular were articles on the cost of family offices, VC hard truths for family offices from Harry Stebbings and where people are moving to protect their money.

Until next week, see you on 𝕏 or LinkedIn.

X