INTHEBLACK November 2025 - Magazine - Page 20
F E AT U R E
“If they are to be inheritors or stewards of significant
family wealth, heirs do need to have a minimum
of financial knowledge — and that can be challenging
because not everybody has that acumen.”
DAVID WERDIGER, FAMILY-OFFICE CONSULTANT
of new single-family offices — the privately
held companies that look after a family’s
financial portfolio, including estate planning,
investments, philanthropy and taxes — in
jurisdictions such as Singapore and Hong
Kong. Deloitte Private research shows
that there are already more family offices
in APAC than Europe, and the region is
forecast to outpace North American growth
by 2030.
The bullish outlook is in line with research
from global wealth manager UBS concludes
that APAC will be the top investment
location for family offices globally in the
next five years, with more than a third
of the region’s family offices planning to
allocate more assets to the area.
UBS global wealth manager and head
of global family and institutional wealth in
APAC, LH Koh, says such trends highlight
the importance of succession planning.
“The key to successful succession planning
in families lies in aligning family values
with governance structures, while actively
preparing the next generation through
education and clearly defined roles.”
GAME CHANGERS: SINGAPORE
AND HONG KONG
In recent years, Singapore and Hong Kong
have confirmed their status as the go-to
locations for UHNW individuals and
families seeking to manage their wealth
through single-family offices. The key driver
has been their tax-friendly regimes.
In 2020, Singapore introduced a Variable
Capital Company structure, in which capital
gains and income generated from the
investment vehicle are tax exempt.
Hong Kong introduced new tax concessions
20 INTHEBLACK November 2025
for family-owned investment-holding
vehicles in 2023. The special administrative
region does not tax capital gain or offshore
profits, and dividend income is generally
not taxable.
Karina Wong FCPA, a tax partner for EY
in Hong Kong and CPA Australia’s 2025
Greater China divisional president, says
the low- or no-tax policies in Singapore
and Hong Kong have been game changers.
“Not only are they attracting family offices
in both jurisdictions, but they also see it
as a means of creating a pathway to tax
residency for wealthy individuals from other
jurisdictions,” she says.
Wong notes that many wealthy Hong Kong
families didn’t officially run family offices
in the past and are now formalising their
structures. South-East Asian strongholds
such as Malaysia and Indonesia (notably,
Bali) are also seeking to offer tax incentives
to attract family investors.
AUSTRALIAN GROWTH
Australia’s family-office sector cannot match
the scale of Asia, but it has experienced growth
in recent years. An estimated 2000 family
or private offices are operating in Australia
according to KPMG, with the Baillieu and
Myer families’ joint firm Mutual Trust, the
Victor Smorgon Group and the Lowy Family
Group among the best known.
However, new players are emerging,
including Skip Capital, the family office
of Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar and
his wife Kim Jackson.
David Werdiger, a family-office consultant
and author of Transition: How to Prepare
Your Family and Business for the Greatest
Wealth Transfer in History, says more
