Hong Kong must raise its game to attract multifamily-office operators, study says
City needs to improve technology, innovation and service quality to further develop as a family-office hub, white paper says
Hong Kong’s government needs to dig deeper for the next stage of the city’s development as a hub for family offices by creating an ecosystem capable of supporting more multifamily-office operators, according to a white paper.
“Hong Kong has been very successful in attracting single-family offices, and the next step forward should be how to attract more multiple-family offices,” said Marshall Jen, executive director of Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Family Business, which published the paper on Wednesday.
The government should offer services and a broader range of incentives to attract talent capable of managing wealth for different generations of multiple families, said the paper, which was based on more than 30 interviews in the first quarter with family office owners and ultra-high-net-worth individuals – those with at least US$30 million to invest.
Jen said that while the city already had tax incentives and other measures that had made it the home for 2,700 family offices, most were single-family offices, with only a few large multiple-family operators.
“None of the Hong Kong multiple-family offices manage to squeeze into the ranking of the top players worldwide,” he said.
Multiple-family offices create more job opportunities and attract more capital, because some of them hire hundreds of professionals and manage billions of dollars for many wealthy families.