Ultra rich wanted more China exposure before trade war: survey

[SINGAPORE] Many of the world’s richest family offices were planning to ramp up their investments in China despite the looming threat of a global trade war, according to a survey of UBS Group clients.

The report – which based its findings on 317 family offices with an average of US$1.1 billion in assets under management – showed that over a third of clans in the Middle East planned to increase their exposure to mainland China, as did 39 per cent from the Asia-Pacific region. On average globally, 18 per cent wanted to do so.

There was one notable exception: US family offices, who made up 13 per cent of respondents, all said they would not increase their exposure to China in the year ahead, according to UBS’s 2025 Global Family Office Report.

Those results – largely gathered before US President Donald Trump’s announcement of global tariffs shook confidence in the country’s financial markets – showed that the super rich outside of the US are choosing to hedge their bets instead of picking a side as the world’s biggest economies decouple.

A global trade war is the risk that worries billionaire families the most over the next year, followed by a major geopolitical conflict and inflation, according to the report. BLOOMBERG