By Josh Spero in London
US tariffs and Iran war cited among motivations for the rich to spread risk
Geopolitical upheaval is driving the rich to open new branches of family offices around the world to manage risks created by wars, tax changes and economic sanctions.
Advisers said events such as US President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, his strike on Venezuela and the continuing military campaign against Iran had made family offices feel that home conditions were less settled.
They also cited the UK’s abolition of the non-dom regime as well as widening US, EU and UK sanctions in recent years.
One person who until recently ran a Dubai family office said the wealthy wanted “backstops” where they could “dollop a quarter of a million dollars [into accounts] to give yourself a few options”.
Families have been introducing “decentralisation in the face of governance unpredictability” to build in resilience, said Tom Everett-Heath, global head of investigations, diligence and compliance at corporate intelligence group Kroll.
“As the world becomes more uncertain . . . there is a benefit in effective hedging through diversification, the same way you would with an asset book,” added Everett-Heath. This bore fruit if part of your network in one jurisdiction was frozen, for example, by sanctions, blacklisting or other government moves.
Seventy-four per cent of family offices outside the US cited geopolitics as a top-five investment risk, according to the Global Family Office Report 2026 from JPMorgan. It was 57 per cent for US family offices.
A single family office can perform multiple functions, including investment management, running operating companies and arranging philanthropic donations and lifestyle services.
A 2024 survey from consultancy Deloitte of family offices found that 28 per cent already had multiple branches and 12 per cent were planning to set up new ones. Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s US-headquartered family office, Bayshore Global Management, opened a branch in Singapore in 2020.
Most family offices intending to open a new branch are planning on doing so in their region, according to a Deloitte survey, although European ones were also keen on North America, with 43 per cent eyeing expansion there. Asia-Pacific family offices were the only ones intending to open a branch in the Middle East, with 6 per cent expressing an interest in a branch there.
Rebecca Gooch, director at Deloitte and author of the survey, said family offices “are building international footprints to access investment opportunities, attract top talent, optimise tax and regulatory outcomes and manage geopolitical risk in a more fragmented global system.”
“This shift is particularly evident among larger, more institutionalised family offices, where international presence is becoming part of their portfolio architecture rather than an operational afterthought,” she added.
Opening multiple branches is a reversal of a trend for simplification, said Sara Macedo, managing principal at Emissary Partners, which works with family offices on “special situations”.
“What you’re definitely seeing a trend now is where complexity is being built in by design to give optionality.”
Sara Macedo, managing principal at Emissary Partners
William Sinclair, global co-head of the family office practice at JPMorgan Private Bank, said there were natural reasons for expansion other than geopolitics: “Our families are increasingly becoming more global as the generations go down and the next generation might live in another jurisdiction.”
The person from the Dubai family office said that families might set up a branch in the Gulf as a backup but “the senior management still rather likes living around Lake Geneva or the West End of London”.
According to Deloitte, in 2024, there were more than 8,000 single family offices globally, managing $3.1tn of assets. By 2030, the number was expected to increase to nearly 11,000, managing $5.4tn.