Family offices ‘kept captive’ by relationship managers turn to independent advisers, direct deals

[SINGAPORE] Family offices in Singapore are taking a more active hand in sourcing their own investment opportunities as the sector becomes increasingly institutionalised.

This shift was evident at the Private Family Society’s inaugural event, the AI & Family Office Summit, on Oct 5. 

The society is an invitation-only community for family office principals, executives and chief investment officers in the Asia-Pacific. It was co-founded in August by Anupum Khaitan, managing principal at advisory firm Sophatych, and Sean Tan, director at business lifestyle firm Bespoke 81.

“Some of the pain points that we’ve seen in the family office industry, particularly in Singapore, is that oftentimes, family offices are kept captive by relationship managers and private banks... looking to monetise the next transaction,” said Khaitan. 

He added: “Information arrives as a pitch, not necessarily as intelligence of what’s the best thing for the families to do.” 

As at end-2025, the Republic had more than 2,000 single-family offices that receive tax incentives, as reported by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Scale matters 

Khaitan told The Business Times on the sidelines of the event that allocators across the board are embracing a trend of “going direct”.

However, he noted that while many allocators are making direct investments, “as their legacy starts to become more meaningful, performance requires them, at minimum, to also allocate professionally to those who can keep sharp eyes on their investments”. 

Similarly, Andrew Khoo, executive chairman and CEO of Bursa Malaysia-listed MUI Group, who also helps to manage his family office, noted that while he expects direct investment sourcing to rise as the industry becomes more institutionalised, there is a need for a “balanced approach”.

“While there is always going to be direct deal flow based on connections and network opportunities, third-party advisers will continue to play a critical role and (be a source of) where most investment opportunities will arise from,” he said.

Yee Tuck Meng, partner at Singapore-based single family office JRT Partners, told BT that the extent of this shift, from siloed operations to institutionalised set-ups, largely depends on a family office’s scale.

“(There are) families that run their portfolio like a fund, as opposed to running it like their personal investment portfolio, which is very different,” he said.

He noted that smaller operations largely function on an advisory model, where investments are typically executed through private banks.

Meanwhile, institutional family offices, which he defined as those that operate “more like fund managers”, largely employ internal teams with discretionary mandates to invest directly or through funds. 

Allocating capital to AI

Beyond using artificial intelligence in their operations, industry players at the AI & Family Office Summit noted that family offices are increasingly allocating capital towards it.

However, for Asian family offices, most opportunities to invest in AI are still found in the US, said Yee of JRT Partners during a panel discussion on investment and asset management.

This sits at odds with where JRT Partners’ beneficiaries reside: Only two are in the US, while most are in Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, creating an asset-liability mismatch, he noted.

“Even if I think that there’s better value in Asia (or) better value in Europe, the reality is, at least in terms of short-term to medium-term... that the weight of money... is still very much in US dollars.

“So I, like most of my peers, have overinvested in the US right across the entire tech spectrum,” he said, adding that JRT is invested in SpaceX. “That is good, so far, and that is also very bad when the correction comes, and I don’t know when that correction is at the end of the day.”

According to Citi Wealth’s 2026 Global Family Office Report launched on Sep 22, Asia-Pacific’s family offices are the world’s most bullish on AI, with 80 per cent identifying it as a primary sector of interest for direct investments – the highest of any region.

Khoo of MUI Group noted that AI-related investments across the company and his family office have grown steadily over the past five years, to around 10 to 20 per cent of total allocation. He added that this could go up to 30 per cent in the future.

His family office invests in AI and technology through a basket of equity investments, while also placing “certain bets” to stay abreast of industry trends.