Asia Family Offices Outperformed Peers on Tech, Stocks, UBS Says

(Bloomberg) --

The investments of wealthy families in Asia likely outperformed their global peers this year thanks to a bigger exposure to Chinese stocks and tech companies, according to UBS Group AG.

A global study by the Swiss bank’s wealth management arm of 121 family offices with an average wealth of $1.6 billion showed a growing interest in real estate and private equity, particularly in light of the turbulence caused by Covid-19.

In Asia, however, a penchant for stock picking and equity investing helped deliver outsized returns, UBS’s co-head of its global family office group in Asia Pacific, Anurag Mahesh, said during a media briefing in Singapore Thursday.

“Asian families have traditionally been more allocated toward Asian equities, primarily in greater China, and that has been the reason why their portfolios are likely to have outperformed their global peers,” Mahesh said. “They’ve also been much more focused on technology or tech-enabled businesses.”

The S&P 500 is broadly unchanged year-to-date while the MSCI World Index has dipped 2.5%. The CSI 300 Index, a gauge of Chinese stocks listed on the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges, is up 10%; the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index has gained 5.2%.

Mahesh said investments that provide exposure to areas like cloud computing or e-commerce have been popular in the region, as have early-stage investments in companies that use technology to improve more traditional sectors, like education or agriculture.

Family offices based out of Singapore are also continuing to grow in both assets under management and number due in part to attractive government incentives, he said.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.