Family offices in Latin America: From wealth preservation to wealth strategy
Key takeaways
• Latin America family offices are evolving from wealth preservation vehicles into broader wealth strategy platforms as younger generations pursue diversification, private markets, and stronger risk-adjusted returns beyond legacy operating businesses.
• Rising financial literacy, global exposure, and the growth of the CFA Program are increasing demand for institutional-quality advice on succession, governance, tax efficiency, and portfolio construction.
• Political volatility, shifting interest rates, and changing confidence in domestic markets continue to drive offshore allocation decisions and reshape wealth management trends across Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia.
Family offices and the broader wealth management industry in Latin America are navigating a changing set of client needs and market dynamics.
Latin America’s wealth industry is evolving. While generational wealth in the region has not yet reached the fourth, fifth or even sixth generations often seen in Europe, family offices and wealth management advisors are already having to respond to shifts in investor perspectives.
“In Brazil, it is mostly still first- and second-generation wealth, and that’s likely true across most of Latin America,” said Henrique Santos, CFA, Partner and Portfolio Manager at Turim, an independent Brazilian multi-family office. “The biggest businesses in the region are generally not very old, as 100 years ago there was no big company in private ownership.”
But as in other regions, such as Asia, generational transfer is starting to drive change in the wealth management and family office sector. In Latin America, this change is often nuanced.
“We have seen a change for sure in younger inheritors of wealth, but it is not as simple as a preference for monetization over legacy,” said Salvador Miramontes, CFA, Executive Director at Corde, an independent financial advisory firm in Mexico. “What we are seeing is more of a dispersion – they still want to continue with legacy and tradition, but they want to see more options.”
Often these attitudes are driven by increased global travel and exposure to emerging sectors like AI. Differing liquidity needs and appetite for risk are also an increasingly important factor.
“An entrepreneur might have a very long-term portfolio and very few liquidity needs,” said Turim’s Santos. “They might have taken risks with their business but not in their asset portfolio. The next generation is often more risk-taking, with more willingness to commit to alternative assets.”
In many cases, the traditional priority among first-generation wealthy would have been to invest in their main business in their domestic market, or enter a neighboring market. But new generations have evolved their thinking about diversification.
“If you can no longer grow your main business at a higher return on invested capital than your portfolio, then you have to focus on the portfolio,” said Mauricio Santos, CFA, Director of Investment Portfolios at Grupo Bursatil Mexicano (GBM). “That’s the generational shift we are seeing in Latin America, and I think we are just at the tip of the iceberg on that.”
And younger generations are well aware of the concentration in operating businesses and real estate that they are inheriting, argued Jonathan Combeau, CFA, Vice President in Wealth Management at Credicorp Capital Colombia.
“They try to diversify that risk and invest in uncorrelated assets, such as public market securities uncorrelated to their operating business, or they start making their first allocations to simple private markets such as infrastructure debt or venture capital,” he said.
Changing needs – and demands
For these reasons, and increasing financial literacy more broadly, wealthy client attitudes are changing – and family offices have to keep up.
“There has been a shift in recent years in the attitude of high and ultra-high net-worth investors in Latin America,” said Franco Di Nicola, CFA, Portfolio Manager at Bishop Capital and Professor of Finance at Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires. He explained that clients would traditionally let advisors decide investments and would barely participate in the process.
“Today they are much more aware of what is happening,” he added. “It’s no longer a case of ‘I send you money and let’s talk in three months when you send me a report.’”
Family offices are also having to offer a much more structured and comprehensive service. In the past, wealthy people were happy to talk to one key advisor, but now expect their family offices to have a set of institutional and investment professionals working in tandem and covering law and tax as well as investment.
“The family offices that do not adapt to this will disappear in the future,” added Di Nicola.
For Henrique Santos, this is the way multi-family office Turim has operated since its founding in 2001. “We are very close to our family clients,” he said. “We have lots of meetings with them, help them constitute the best structure to be tax-efficient, and invest in the human capital we need to provide broad wealth solutions, including legal or succession advice.”
Multi-family vs single family
Depending on the individual market, these demands can determine what type of family office structure is most viable.
“In Argentina, for example, the typical structure will be multi-family, as you would not find enough professionals to staff only single-family offices,” said Di Nicola. “There are only about 250 CFA® charterholders in Argentina, while in Brazil there are about 2,500.”
In a market like Mexico, the family office landscape in the 1980s and 1990s largely comprised a handful of single-family offices catering to the billionaire owners of companies like FEMSA and América Móvil, said Miramontes.
“As time went by, you saw families with a critical mass of perhaps USD200 million come together in a multi-family structure,” he added. “But what we have seen in the last five to ten years is the emergence of smaller multi-family offices that might be in the range of USD30 million to USD100 million.”
Partly the change has been driven by the fact that investment abroad in the past would have required the opening of offices in multiple markets, a complex and expensive task. But today you can be based in Mexico and invest anywhere.
There are also more advisors available. “The financial advisory industry here in Mexico started slowly, but through the CFA® Program and other certifications it has gained a level of professionalization that has helped family offices source local talent, and this has helped to decrease the critical mass required,” added Miramontes.
The choice of onshore or offshore
One area where there has been divergence is in the preference of wealthy investors for offshore or onshore investment. The dynamic is driven by factors ranging from macroeconomic policy to politics and confidence in legal systems.
“The most important driver is political risk, and last year and this year are the most electorally dense period in Latin America for decades, with eight countries voting,” said Combeau.
“Between 2018 and 2022, the region experienced a dramatic left-ward shift that triggered a massive capital flight to offshore investments, and mostly the US,” added Combeau. “And what we have seen now is the scenario is shifting to the right – we saw with José Antonio Kast winning Chile’s presidential election last year, for instance.”
In Mexico, despite some political uncertainty during the past few years, the opportunity set remains attractive, due to the regionalisation of value chains. “For the last decade the flows in Mexico were all one direction – outside,” said Miramontes. “But much of that has now happened and now we are seeing people looking for domestic opportunities again.”
A historic lack of confidence in ownership rights and undeveloped capital markets has led to a dramatic bifurcation in Argentina.
“I would estimate that around 90% of ultra-high net-worth money is offshore,” said Di Nicola. “It will take more than the current government being business-friendly to change this – I think you need two or three market-friendly governments to establish confidence.”
In some jurisdictions, the driving force can be economic. For a Brazilian family office, Turim has always been unusually international, but with interest rates so high in Brazil – nominal rates are at nearly 15% and real rates are about 10% – investors often have a natural home bias, noted Santos.
“It is common when we onboard clients for them to have perhaps only 10-15% of assets offshore, but we advise them to increase this international exposure over time,” he added.
To learn more about Latin America investment trends, explore these stories:
How private credit investment is filling a funding gap in Latin America
Why Latin America’s equities are capturing global attention
Liquid assets: Why Latin America is embracing investments in water
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