07 July 2025, USA, New York: A street sign reading “Wall Street” hangs on a post in front of the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan’s financial district. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa (Photo by Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Family offices have ramped up their bets on stocks while dialing back their private equity bets, according to a new survey by Goldman Sachs.
Investment firms of ultra-wealthy families reported an average allocation of 31% to public equities, up 3 percentage points from the bank’s last poll in 2023. Over the same two-year period, their allocation to private equity dropped from 26% to 21%, the largest change for all surveyed asset classes.
The shift to stocks was marked for family offices in the U.S. and the Americas, which raised their average allocation from 27% to 31%. As for private equity, their allocation dropped by 2 percentage points to 25% but still exceeds that of their international peers. The bank polled 245 worldwide family offices, two-thirds of which reported managing at least $1 billion in assets, from May 20 to June 18.
Tony Pasquariello, global head of hedge fund coverage at Goldman Sachs, described the portfolio as a “pro-risk asset mix,” as family offices have maintained a relatively high allocation to private equity.
This is despite growing concerns about geopolitical risks and inflation. In the next 12 months, more than three-quarters of respondents said they expected tariffs to be the same or higher and expected valuations to stay the same or decrease.
Family offices, especially those in the U.S., can face hefty tax bills if they make significant divestments, according to Sara Naison-Tarajano, leader of Goldman Sach’s Apex family office business. Moreover, she said, family offices tend to invest opportunistically when other market players retreat, as they did in April when tariff announcements roiled the markets.
“There are concerns in the market, geopolitical issues, trade war issues,” said Naison-Tarajano, who is also the global head of capital markets for the private wealth division. “If they’re concerned about these things, they’re going to be ready to put money to work when these dislocations happen.”
Investing in public equities and ETFs is also the preferred way for family offices to invest in artificial intelligence, according to the survey. The vast majority (86%) of respondents said they were invested in AI in some capacity, with other popular options including investments in secondary beneficiaries of the AI boom like data centers or AI-focused VC funds.
Goldman Sachs’ Meena Flynn added that family offices are still making opportunistic plays in private equity, with 72% investing in secondaries, up from 60% in 2023. Endowments and foundations have been divesting as they are pressed for liquidity, but family offices can scoop attractive assets at a discount and weather the exit slowdown.
“They have the ability to invest in assets that they can hold over multiple generations and not be worried about an exit,” said Flynn, co-head of global private wealth management.
And while family offices appear to be drawing down in private equity, 39% reported plans to invest more in the asset class in the next 12 months, the highest of any category. Nearly the same proportion (38%) intend to invest more in stocks.
Most family offices did not expect to change their portfolios in the upcoming year. However, across every asset class, more family offices planned to increase their allocations rather than decrease. A third of respondents intend to deploy more capital while only 16% intended to increase their cash and cash equivalents allocation.
“I think what this forward-looking picture tells us is that family offices realize the importance of staying invested, and they realize the importance of vintaging, especially with private equity,” Naison-Tarajano said.
That said, family offices in the Americas are more bullish than their peers. More than a third reported not positioning for tail risk compared with 14% and 12% of firms in EMEA and APAC. The most popular method of preparing for a black-swan event was geographic diversification at 53%, with gold ranking second at 24%. While gold made up less than 1% of the average family office portfolio, Flynn said she has seen allocations in some portfolios as high at 15%.
“Especially in regions where our clients are very worried about political instability, they’re actually holding gold in physical form,” Flynn said. “Many of our clients literally want to see the serial number and know where it is in the vault.”
Asian family offices have also taken to using cryptocurrency as a hedge, according to Flynn. Only a quarter (26%) of APAC family offices said they were not interested in crypto, compared with 47% and 58% of their peers in the Americas and EMEA, respectively.
Overall, a third of family offices are invested in crypto, up from 26% in 2023 and doubled from 2021. Of those who haven’t, Asian family offices reported the most interest (39%) in doing so, versus 17% of their peers. Flynn attributed much of their interest to concerns about geopolitics.
