Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty images
A version of this article appeared for the first time in Inside Wealth Newsletter of CNBC with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the investor and consumer with high shuttle. Register To receive future editions, directly in your reception box.
Despite trade war problems and recession fears, ultra-rich investment companies are optimistic about their yields, according to a new survey by Citi Private Bank.
In a survey of 346 family offices, almost half (45%) of respondents said they provided yields of 5%to 10%for the full year 2025, and more than a third (38%) of expected yields exceed 10%. Only 4% anticipated flat performance or negative yields.
Consequently, many family offices make uptime bets, with seven out of 10 saying that they had made direct investments in private companies in the last 12 months until mid-July. Among these companies, twice as much (40%) have declared to increase or significantly increase their exposure to direct transactions to decrease it. Respondents were from 45 countries and recorded an average of $ 2.1 billion in net value.
Hannes Hofmann, who directs the practice of the family of Citi’s family, told inside Wealth that families get up on their exposure to risk assets because they are optimistic about the long -term specific trends – such as the boom of artificial intelligence and the related energy demand for energy and new infrastructure – rather than classes of individual assets.
“It’s a stock selector market,” he said. “These are not long or short sectors or asset classes. It is exposed to specific themes, and many of these themes are only involved in the private market.”
That said, although the vast majority of family offices that conclude direct agreements increase their exposure or maintain it, optimism has obtained last year’s investigation. A net 15% of respondents were optimistic about private capital investments, compared to 36% in 2024.
Overall, the percentage of family offices reporting direct agreements in the last 12 months increased from 77% to 70%. For offices of the North American family, which represented 40% of respondents, this share increased from 86% to 77%.
Family offices have also indicated less interest in fundraising at an early stage and startup or startup financing. Their preference for investments at the growth stage has remained stable, which can be due to a less perceived risk, depending on the report. The decline was particularly clear for the offices of the North American family, which declared decreases of 17% and 11% in series A or B and the financing of seeds, respectively.
Hofmann said that changes in the respondents’ basis could explain the drop in family offices reporting direct investment activity. He said he also observed that they are more selective, narrowing their concentration and targeting of companies that can provide larger tricks.
Hofmann added that family offices are making opportunistic games while institutional investors such as university allocations and pension funds are turning to secondary sales during the slowdown in the exit. It helps three -quarters of respondents who declared to have the possibility of controlling the issues in companies.
“When other players have to sell their illiquid assets, families can come and buy them,” he said. “With family offices, you have a group of investors who obtain a reliable cash flow from operating companies each year so that they can afford to put more money in investment capital.”
While the interest in secondaries fell by 2% overall, this was largely motivated by a drop in the activity of the family offices of Asia-Pacific. The interest of North American family offices for the secondaries increased from 19% to 29%, while companies in Latin America said their interest had increased by a few percentage points.
Eight percent of family offices indicated that the acquisition of majority participation in a company was a priority and 14% said they considered it.
“I think that is an important amount,” he said. “Family offices really believe that business possession, obtaining exposure to themes and the selection of good companies are the long -term way to generate additional value.”