A mood, not a position
Citi Wealth published its 2026 Global Family Office Report on 22 September, and the finding that carries is a mood rather than a position: nearly nine in ten of the family offices it surveyed reported positive portfolio performance year to date, which Citi says is five percentage points better than a year earlier, with only 5% in the red. The survey reached 351 family offices across 41 countries, fielded in June and July 2026 and opened at the bank's 11th Annual Family Office Leadership Summit. Citi's Global Family Office Group, which compiled it, says it works with more than 1,900 family offices worldwide.
The worry list has reordered. Inflation is now the dominant concern at nearly two-thirds of respondents, ahead of interest rates (44%), the stability of the global financial system (38%) and market volatility (34%). Trade disputes and tariffs, top of mind in the 2025 edition, fell to 18%. Return targets stayed modest — 41% still aim for 7% to 10% a year and only 11% chase above 15% — which is the survey's quiet point: these portfolios are not being run by people being paid to be brave.
Where the money moved is the practical part. Public equity took the largest net increase in allocation, at 34 percentage points, with private equity and cash next at 15 points each. Nearly half increased their public-equity exposure, making it the top destination for new capital, and global developed equities are the most favoured class for future net allocations. Private markets remain a pillar rather than a retreat: 75% of respondents invest directly in companies, and 40% expect to do more of it over the next 12 months. Artificial intelligence has moved from pilot to plumbing — the report describes deployment across investment analysis, reporting and workflow automation, with the emphasis on productivity rather than on generating returns.
Asia Pacific ran furthest ahead
The regional cut is where this survey earns its keep for readers here. Asia Pacific supplied 22% of respondents. Citi prints the share, not the count; applied to its own 351, that is roughly 77 family offices — this desk's arithmetic, not the report's.
| Measure, from Citi's regional tables | Global | Asia Pacific | North America |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year-to-date portfolio gain above 15% | 13% | 26% | 11% |
| Target annual return above 15% | 11% | 22% | 12% |
| Participates in direct investing | 75% | 79% | 78% |
| Made no portfolio adjustment after the Middle East volatility | 41% | 13% | 60% |
Citi's own reading of that first row is blunt: Asia Pacific's 26% is more than double the share in North America (11%) and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (10%). The report credits the region's public equity markets — it notes the Nikkei 225 was up roughly 30% through mid-June — and adds that Asia Pacific was also the most active region on risk, with 62% citing active management and 49% hedging. Only 13% of the region's respondents said they made no adjustment at all, against 60% in North America. Citi attributes part of that to geography: 85% of oil destined for Asian markets transits the Strait of Hormuz.
On sector appetite the gap is wider still. Asia Pacific respondents named artificial intelligence as a primary investment focus at 80%, against 51% globally, followed by healthcare (43%), robotics (33%) and software (22%).
What Hong Kong's concession asks in return
A family that wants the portfolio Citi describes — more listed equity, more direct deals, a digital-asset allocation — eventually needs a vehicle to hold it. Hong Kong's is the family-owned investment holding vehicle, or FIHV: an entity managed in Hong Kong by an eligible single family office, taxed at 0% on profits from qualifying transactions and from transactions incidental to them. It has been available since the 2023 amendment ordinance, and the arithmetic of who qualifies has not changed.
The conditions are exact, and worth reading before a lawyer bills for them. One family's members must hold at least 95% of the beneficial interest. The vehicles that a single family office manages must together hold at least HK$240 million in assets specified in Schedule 16C of the Inland Revenue Ordinance — securities, private-company shares, futures, deposits, exchange-traded commodities, foreign currency and over-the-counter derivatives among them. The test that decides most cases is the substantial-activities requirement: at least two qualified full-time employees in Hong Kong carrying out the income-producing activities, and at least HK$2 million of operating expenditure incurred in Hong Kong each year. One eligible single family office may manage no more than 50 concession-covered vehicles.
Two mechanics matter as much as the thresholds. The election is made in writing, is irrevocable, and is made once — it applies to all subsequent years of assessment rather than being renewed annually. And the concession does not cover the family's wealth generally; it covers profits from qualifying transactions, with a ceiling sitting over the incidental ones.
What the June bill changes
The Inland Revenue (Amendment) (Preferential Tax Regimes for Funds, Family-owned Investment Holding Vehicles and Carried Interest) Bill 2026 was published in the Gazette on 12 June 2026. It touches five areas, and one of them is the direct answer to what Citi's respondents say they want: it expands the scope of qualifying investments to take in loans and private credit, digital assets, precious metals and specified commodities. It also removes the 5% threshold on incidental transactions and relaxes the exemption treatment of special purpose entities.
Two points of status, stated plainly because both are easy to get wrong. The Bill has had its first reading but has not resumed its second reading debate; this desk checked the Legislative Council's Bills Committee record on 21 September and that line was still open. If enacted, the measures apply from the 2025/26 year of assessment. And the Bill's new tax reporting mechanism, along with economic substance requirements mirroring the FIHV regime's, sits under the unified fund regime — it does not create a fresh annual notification duty for family offices, whose election stays a one-off.
For a family weighing Hong Kong against elsewhere, the comparison that matters is not the headline rate, which is zero in both places, but what the jurisdiction demands in exchange. Singapore's 13O and 13U schemes take the same approach — a minimum fund size, a local-spend floor and a headcount condition tied to investment professionals — and the substance conditions Singapore attaches to those two schemes are the closest published yardstick to Hong Kong's two-employee, HK$2 million test.
What to watch
The next real date is procedural, not fiscal: the resumption of the second reading debate on the Bill, which is when the widened asset list stops being a draft and starts being something a family office can structure against. Until that appears on the agenda, the regime a family can actually use today is the 2023 one — HK$240 million, two people and HK$2 million of local spending.
After that, the honest check on this survey is its own next edition. The 2025 report put trade disputes and tariffs at the top of the worry list; the 2026 report put inflation there instead. Whether the calm that produced a 90% positive-return year survives a second year of these allocations is the question Citi's 2027 report will answer, and the answer will arrive before the asset list widens.
