The world’s wealthiest families are rapidly expanding their family offices, transforming them from simple administrative hubs into sophisticated global power centres designed to safeguard wealth, legacy, and influence, according to Julius Baer’s Family Barometer 2025 compiled with PwC Switzerland.
Once focused mainly on asset management, today’s family offices operate as command centres — integrating investment, governance, philanthropy, cybersecurity, and succession planning — to manage growing complexity in a volatile world.
The report, based on feedback from over 2,400 industry professionals across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, shows that only around 40% of ultra-high-net-worth families currently have a dedicated office, but adoption is accelerating, particularly in Asia. Singapore now counts more than 2,000 single-family offices, marking a tenfold increase in just a few years and solidifying its position as a global hub for private wealth.
While establishing a family office can be costly and complex, many families are now embracing hybrid models — outsourcing functions like compliance or philanthropy while retaining investment and governance control internally. “It depends on each family’s circumstances,” said María Eugenia Mosquera, head of family-office services at Julius Baer. “A thoughtful, objective assessment is essential to build the right structure.”
The research also found that “building family legacy” has, for the first time, become one of the top three priorities for the global elite. More families are formalising values and governance through written constitutions and mission statements, ensuring unity and continuity across generations.
In Asia, especially, second- and third-generation entrepreneurs are turning family offices into institutional-grade platforms that operate across borders and sectors. “They’re moving beyond wealth management toward professionalised, enduring structures,” noted Christos Anagnostopoulos, Julius Baer’s head of family-office advisory in Asia.
Private markets have emerged as the favoured arena for wealth preservation and growth, with allocations to real estate, private equity, venture capital, and infrastructure often representing 35% or more of total portfolios. “Illiquidity isn’t a drawback — it’s a feature,” said Giuseppe De Filippo, who leads the bank’s private-capital markets division. “It rewards families who can take the long view with an ‘illiquidity premium’ — higher returns for patient capital.”
As family offices multiply and mature, their function is shifting once again. What began as record-keeping has evolved into the defining power infrastructure of the modern wealth era. For the super-rich, it’s no longer about managing money alone — it’s about managing time, purpose, and resilience to ensure their values and influence endure across generations.
