Asia’s richest families fuel race for lucrative finance jobs
The rise of Asian family offices is tied to the region’s maturing fortunes
On a sweat-laced evening in June, while much of Hong Kong dug into supper, two dozen students snaked their way past ginseng dispensaries and tailor shops to the third floor of an office tower to be schooled in finance’s hottest trend.
The cohort was a white-collar jumble – some were private bankers with gym bags, others primly-dressed accountants. They’d come to study the ABCs of family offices – firms dedicated to managing enormous, secretive pools of generational wealth: from the perils of working for politically exposed persons to soft skills covering the vagaries of Swiss watches and fine art.
The night classes are part of a global race taking place from Singapore to Miami and Lausanne as governments fight to attract booming family office businesses, especially from Asia. With residency, luxe living and low taxes mere table-stakes, the availability of trained staff to help the ultra-rich run their lives and their money has become a key battleground. Trillions of investment dollars and top jobs that sometimes pay $1 million or more are up for grabs.
“The talent gap is growing and becoming a problem,” said instructor Dixon Wong, ahead of his lesson at HKU Space, a continuing education school affiliated with Hong Kong University. “Unlike many of the family offices in the US and Europe, Asian family offices are often managed by family members, but this approach has had some constraints and limitations.”
Wealth Transfer
The rise of Asian family offices is tied to the region’s maturing fortunes. With much of the local money generated after the end of colonialism, many of the entrepreneurs who’ve become super rich are now seeking to manage and transfer wealth to theirdescendants – just as old-money families in Europe and the US have done for decades.
By 2025, financial wealth in Asia excluding Japan could outstrip the US, according to a projection by HSBC Holdings Plc, which pegged the number at almost $140 trillion in 2021. Knight Frank predicts Asia will have more wealthy residents than Europe within three years.
The resulting surge in family office demand is hitting the region like a tsunami – 80 per cent of the firms surveyed for Campden Research’s Asia-Pacific Family Office Report last year were established after 2000. The global family office industry was already managing nearly $6 trillion in 2019 – a figure that has only grown since then.
“Asia has tremendous growth potential,’’ said Rebecca Gooch, global head of insights at Deloitte Private in London. While the region only accounts for a fifth of all familly offices, it’s the fastest-growing market in the world, she said.
Financial hubs are ramping up efforts to get in on the action. Hong Kong has introduced a raft of tax and residency incentives aimed in part at luring clans wanting to invest in China,while Dubai has opened a dedicated center for wealthy familie.
Singapore was early to the game, offering tax breaks and other perks, adding to its reputation for stability. The city-state had about 1,100 family offices at the end of 2022, up from just 400 in 2020, according to Monetary Authority of Singapore estimates. In March, the government said there was a backlog of 200 new applications. Hong Kong is targeting at least 200 top-tier offices by 2025.
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