Succession, governance and growth: Why Asia’s business-owning families are turning to Hong Kong

FOR many of the region’s wealthiest business-owning families, the hardest question is no longer simply where to invest, but finding out how to hold everything together.

Enterprises that began with a founder’s instinct and close family control have grown into regional businesses, global portfolios and multi-generational family networks. Surplus capital now sits alongside operating companies, heirs may live across jurisdictions, and decisions once made around the family table increasingly require clearer structures.

How should surplus capital be separated from the operating business? How should the next generation be prepared? How should governance adapt when a founder-led company passes from siblings to a wider circle of cousins across markets?

Behind closed doors across the region, these conversations are leading more business-owning families to consider clearer structures around wealth, governance and succession – bringing the role of the family office into sharper focus.

“Beyond investment performance, families are increasingly focused on governance, succession and continuity,” says Philip Crinion, managing director of independently-owned wealth management company Bentley Reid.

“We are seeing families look into the family succession architecture, particularly for family members who live across multiple jurisdictions. There are more discussions around professionalised risk management, liquidity planning, concentration and counterparty risk.”

From asset management to family architecture

Wealth advisers and family-office practitioners say much of today’s family-office momentum in Hong Kong is coming from two broad groups.

The first is founder-led Asian businesses seeking to separate business capital from family wealth. The second is international families with global portfolios that have yet to establish a structured base in Asia for managing wealth, investments and governance.

According to the Global Wealth Report 2026 published by the Boston Consulting Group, Hong Kong is now the world’s largest cross-boundary wealth management centre, with cross-border wealth projected to grow at 9 per cent annually through 2030 – extending its lead globally.

Hong Kong is positioning itself at the centre of this evolution through what it calls “Family Office 2.0”, a structural shift that broadens the family office from a vehicle for asset management into an architecture that aligns operating businesses, investment portfolios, governance systems and succession planning under one jurisdiction.

What families are often looking for is not a single incentive, but an ecosystem. Crinion describes Hong Kong as a “deeply integrated financial services jurisdiction”, with deep capital markets, private banking, asset management, legal, tax and accounting solutions, as well as specialist family-office providers covering areas from governance and philanthropy to reporting, cyber, art and aviation.

The breadth and depth of that ecosystem are increasingly reflected in the city’s family-office base. As at end-2025, Hong Kong had 3,380 single-family offices, an increase of 680 from the previous estimate and a growth of more than 25 per cent, a Deloitte study found.

A city built by family enterprises

Hong Kong’s appeal is also rooted in its own history as a city shaped by family enterprises. 

For more than a century, Hong Kong’s modern economy has been closely intertwined with family enterprises: the Fungs of Li & Fung in trading and global supply chains; the Kadoories in power and hospitality; and the Li, Lee, Kwok and Cheng families in property and conglomerates. 

Chairman and chief executive officer of Harilela Hotels Aron Harilela, whose family has been based in the city for almost 100 years, says, “the challenge that we face, and a lot of other family businesses have faced in Asia, is the generational change from generation one to generation two, when siblings were on the board. Now cousins are on the board.” He also adds that this shift makes harmonisation harder and governance vital.

Business continuity is not just about succession. It is also about how the business remains relevant without losing the values, craft or reputation on which it was founded. For family-run heritage brands, Hong Kong’s East-West role matters. 

Maximilian Kaufmann, representative of a major shareholder of Leica Camera AG, describes Hong Kong as “the natural springboard for family-run heritage brands”. 

“Having grown up inside Leica and learning from a father who always shouldered responsibility, I see Hong Kong as the place where tradition and entrepreneurship can thrive side by side.”

A gateway into the mainland

Hong Kong’s next advantage lies in its ability to connect global capital with the vast Chinese mainland market, its fast-evolving innovation ecosystem and high-growth companies.

Within a five-hour flight of half the world’s population, the city offers free port status, open capital markets, no exchange controls, and the infrastructure of the world’s largest offshore Renminbi centre, all supported by a common law system that supports seamless cross-border capital flow. 

At recent family-office engagements in Singapore, Jason Fong, global head of Family Office at InvestHK, cited the case of an Asian technology entrepreneur drawn to the Hong Kong Northern Metropolis–Shenzhen cooperation model. 

The two cities offer complementary strengths: Hong Kong’s depth in research, finance and international structuring, alongside Shenzhen’s manufacturing base, cutting-edge technologies and supply-chain networks.  

The entrepreneur went on to set up both a regional headquarters and a family office in Hong Kong, while one branch of the family relocated to Hong Kong, turning a business move into a longer-term decision about where the family’s next chapter could take root.

What comes next

After decades spent building businesses, wealth and reputation, many family-owned enterprises reach a different stage of growth – turning commercial success into a legacy that can endure across generations and markets.

Hong Kong has sought to support that shift with practical policy infrastructure. Profits tax concessions for eligible family-owned vehicles managed by qualifying single-family offices help families structure capital outside the operating business, while the New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme gives them a clear pathway to permanent residency in the city.

Together, these measures extend Hong Kong’s long history with family legacy. It is a city where founding business leaders built their fortunes, passed businesses to the next generation, and is now preparing to help families navigate the next great transfer of wealth.

Visit FamilyOfficeHK to find out more.