The two faces of wealth in Asia

AS ASIA undergoes both a boom in new wealth creation and an unprecedented transfer of existing wealth, two distinct groups are emerging at the centre of the region’s wealth story.

The first are the more recently minted wealth creators: first-generation entrepreneurs, investors and professionals who have generated substantial wealth relatively recently. 

The second are the stewards: members of established business families who have inherited the responsibility of managing wealth and businesses built by previous generations.

At first glance, they inhabit very different worlds. One is creating wealth through rapidly evolving industries and new business models. The other is preserving and managing wealth built over generations. 

Yet, both face a common challenge: ensuring their legacy endures beyond past success.

Understanding the concerns of the two groups is key to helping families navigate the next chapter of Asia’s wealth story.

Different journeys to wealth

Let us first look at the creators, today’s new wealth holders. 

The rise of technology giants has created not only billionaire entrepreneurs, but also wealthy executives and early employees who accumulated a fortune through equity ownership, stock options and initial public offerings. 

It has also fuelled the growth of wealth for a cohort of private equity and venture capital professionals and investors in these companies. 

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What distinguishes many of these individuals is not just the scale of wealth, but the speed at which it was created. Unlike previous generations, whose wealth was often built over decades, many of today’s creators have amassed significant fortunes within a single career cycle, often at a young age. 

The speed at which this wealth is created can leave individuals facing questions typically associated with much older family fortunes. These questions encompass how to diversify and preserve concentrated wealth, and how to use it to support their long-term goals and legacy. 

Yet, many remain focused on building their businesses and pursuing new opportunities. As a result, they may not recognise the urgency to establish their succession plans, leaving their families exposed to complications if unexpected life events occur before plans are put in place.

Then there are the stewards. These are members of established business families responsible not only for managing wealth and family businesses, but also for maintaining cohesion across extended family networks. 

While their challenge is less about creating wealth, they must continue to grow and preserve it while positioning the family to seize new opportunities or navigate periods of uncertainty. 

At the same time, the number of family members and stakeholders often expands with each generation, bringing a wider range of interests, expectations and relationships to manage.

Their role is to ensure continuity of both wealth and purpose. In Asia, this often means navigating a dynamic in which founders continue to wield significant influence well into their seventies and eighties. 

The result can be a prolonged transition period, with the next generation preparing to assume leadership while authority remains firmly in the hands of the founder. Managing this period successfully is critical for preserving wealth, maintaining family harmony and ensuring a shared vision for the future.

Divergent paths, similar solutions

Despite their different wealth journeys, both creators and stewards eventually confront the same, fundamental question: What is the wealth for?

The answers may differ, but the concerns are often the same: preservation, purpose and harmony.

The first objective is preservation.

For creators, a priority may be turning a liquidity event into lasting security. For stewards, the focus is often on safeguarding wealth that has already passed through one or more generations.

Yet, doing so involves difficult trade-offs: protection versus growth, flexibility versus certainty, or interests of individual family members versus the sustainability of the family business. 

Nevertheless, in both cases, families frequently turn to professional advisers to help navigate the trade-offs, with the understanding that preserving wealth requires more than investment expertise. 

They draw on a combination of investment advice on how to diversify holdings, establish governance approaches that balance the needs of multiple generations and use structures such as family offices, trusts and insurance solutions to support their long-term goals. 

The second concern is purpose.

Increasingly, across Asia, conversations are moving beyond investment performance and towards legacy and impact. 

Whether that means backing a new generation of entrepreneurs, preserving a family enterprise or giving back to society, both creators and stewards grapple with how to imbue purpose into the wealth they have. This has become especially important to younger generations.

As interest in strategic giving grows, more families are seeking structured ways to incorporate philanthropy into their long-term plans. To support this trend, Bank of Singapore recently launched its Legacy of Giving programme, a philanthropy advisory and donor-advised fund platform that helps clients build philanthropic legacies aligned with their family values.

The third objective is harmony. 

Both creators and stewards are aware that preserving relationships is just as important as preserving wealth itself, if not more so.

What begins as a financial discussion often extends far beyond money to questions of trust, communication and shared expectations. A succession plan may look robust on paper, yet prove difficult to execute if family members are not aligned on the future of a business, the distribution of wealth or the responsibilities that accompany ownership. 

Such misalignment can strain family relationships and lead to disputes. Conversely, families with strong communication and shared values are often better equipped to navigate disagreements. 

Against this backdrop, families are placing greater emphasis on formal governance structures, recognising that wealth transfer is an ongoing process of preparing future generations. 

At the same time, decisions on investments, business ownership, succession and philanthropy rarely exist in isolation. 

As a result, families increasingly value a “whole-of-wealth” approach that brings these interconnected priorities together. Our clients can leverage the wider OCBC Group ecosystem to address not only investment needs, but also broader considerations around business ownership, succession, philanthropy and legacy.

Ultimately, the challenge is not simply to preserve wealth, but to sustain it with purpose and harmony across generations. 

Whether they are creators or stewards, the goal is the same: to ensure that wealth continues to benefit families, businesses and communities long after it has been created. Helping families achieve this may well define the future of wealth management in Asia.

The writers are from Bank of Singapore; Elvin Ho is head of family office and structuring solutions, and Guo Jiawen is head of family office and wealth advisory, Singapore