How next-gen investors are reshaping family offices in Southeast Asia
Key takeaways
• Family offices in Southeast Asia are rapidly expanding and professionalizing, driven by generational wealth transfer and shifting investment priorities.
• Why it matters now: Next-gen investors are prioritizing ESG and private markets, pushing more structured governance and institutional-grade investment strategies.
• What’s changing? Increased use of external managers, technology, and formal investment committees is reshaping how family capital is allocated and managed.
Generational transfer and a focus on professional management are modernizing the family office landscape in Southeast Asia.
The rapid growth of family offices has become a defining feature of wealth management in Southeast Asia. According to financial data company Dakota, about 600 new single-family offices were added in Singapore in 2024 alone, taking the total to over 2,000, a 400% increase on 2020.
While the region’s economic growth and rising wealth pool are driving forces, family office managers say their experience in Southeast Asia is unlike other regions.
“The macro view of family offices in the region is the sheer increase in numbers and the speed at which they are growing,” said Zann Kwan, CFA, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Revo Digital Family Office, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Raffles Family Office.
“The most obvious difference between family offices here and in other markets like Europe is their age,” added Kwan. “In Europe they are usually much older – it is not uncommon to speak to family offices helmed by their sixth or seventh generation. But in Singapore and Asia in general, they are more likely to be run by the first to third generation.”
This is being driven in part by a substantial wealth transfer in the broader Asia-Pacific region that has been estimated at USD5.8 trillion by 2030, as well GDP growth for Southeast Asia that is outpacing the global average. The IMF forecasts 4.3% GDP growth in 2026, compared to 3.1% for the world.
Family office regional expansion
Singapore remains the principal wealth management hub in Southeast Asia and the focus for family office expansion in the region.
“Singapore has long been promoting itself as a family office center, and in parallel with that it has the Singapore Wealth Management Institute (WMI) which has been focused on building up the advisory ecosystem to support family offices,” said Christian Stewart, Founder of Family Legacy Asia, which advises families on how to preserve wealth and implement effective family governance.
The industry, however, is expanding geographically. One of the most notable developments today is Malaysia, which is aiming to be an important challenger.
In 2024, Malaysia’s Forest City Special Financial Zone launched a scheme to provide tax and residency incentives for high-net-worth families to manage their assets through local single-family offices if they have at least MYR30 million (USD7 million) in assets.
The first conditional approvals have taken place, with indicative assets under management (AUM) of MYR400 million as of October 2025, and there have been dozens of applications. Malaysia’s Securities Commission is aiming for MYR2 billion in AUM by the end of 2026.
Singapore, meanwhile, has cut family office tax incentive approval times, in a bid to counter the impact of previous regulatory tightening on the appeal of the city as a venue.
The purpose of wealth is changing
One important concept that is only just beginning to come into focus in the region is that of the purpose of wealth.
“There are a couple of different ways of thinking about the purpose of wealth,” said Stewart. “The older generation’s mindset will often be to preserve the family’s financial capital or the success of the family business. But the rising generation will have a broader concept of that, looking at how they can be socially responsible or engage in impact investment.”
Research from CFA Institute Research and Policy Center shows that more than 90% of Gen Z and millennial investors say it is important to align their investment portfolio with their personal values.
Kwan said that wealth is often being passed on earlier, sometimes in smaller amounts, as a way to involve the younger generation in its management.
“A family might want exposure on the technology front, for instance in digital assets, and so it might allocate fragments of wealth to the next generation so that they can start participating in the family wealth management,” said Kwan.
“I increasingly have conversations with third-generation investors in their 20s about how to allocate and risk manage, or what kind of resources they should have in-house for digital assets allocation.”
Stewart breaks down the advice for family offices wishing to modernize into three areas. First is the expert or quantitative advice that will cover practical things like the tax regulations in setting up a family office in Singapore when you are from Indonesia, for example.
“The second is people like me, advising on governance, family meetings, and trust and communication within the family,” he added. “And then third, family offices also need support from people such as family therapists and coaches, helping the family to achieve good relationships and family harmony.”
Governance alongside growth
Family offices throughout Asia are increasingly moving towards more professional and structured platforms, including boards, investment committees and using technology such as agentic AI to implement more automated operations. In Southeast Asia, the majority of family offices have an investment committee in place, according to UBS.
In this respect, developments in the region mirror the path that the family office sector has taken elsewhere. CFA Institute has previously published analysis of similar dynamics in the Middle East, for example.
According to Kwan, the modernization of family offices in the region is taking place along two paths: one is how they select their investments and the other is what kinds of investments they make.
“The question of how they are allocating comes down to internal resources, how they might be using artificial intelligence or how are they building up their in-house investment team and capabilities,” said Kwan.
“The other side is about where they are allocating. Most of the conversations are actually about that and once we talk about what they want to invest in, very often the families will realize they don’t have the internal resources to monitor and manage the investments.”
A study by Deloitte and Raffles Family Office in 2024 found that more than 40% of Asian families were planning to shift to having more non-family staff as part of the professionalization trend. This is part of a global recruitment trend that is reshaping career opportunities in family offices for investment professionals.
Another consideration is the infrastructure of the investment process itself and what professional finance and investment partners they will be working with.
“We do see more teaming up between family offices and external investment managers or multi-family-offices, but it is still early days,” said Kwan. “In the US, almost half of the private wealth is managed by external asset managers, whereas in Asia this is only about 5%. The concept of multi-family-offices is still very new in Southeast Asia as many families still manage their wealth in-house or rely on private banks directly.”
To learn more about investment trends in Southeast Asia, explore these stories:
Shifting gears: EV charging investments accelerate in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia’s remote healthcare investment opportunity
How investors are backing energy connectivity across ASEAN
To learn more about family office trends, explore these stories:
How family offices balance emotion and strategy in private markets investing
Seven trends reshaping family office careers today
How family offices are spreading their wings in the Middle East
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