US family offices pay world’s highest salaries to top money managers
Almost 1 in 5 US family office CIOs make US$1m annually
[NEW YORK] US family offices are paying their top money managers the most competitive salaries globally as the number of private investment firms for the ultra-rich proliferate and they become increasingly professionalised.
Almost one of every five chief investment officers at US family offices make at least US$1 million a year, the highest percentage worldwide, according to a report on Tuesday (Sep 30) from KPMG and recruitment firm Agreus Group.
About 9 per cent of family office CIOs earned that amount in euros, while 16 per cent hit the US$1 million threshold across the Americas region, including Mexico and Canada. None reached the top rank in the UK or Asia, where chief executive officers typically out-earn investment chiefs, according to the report, which surveyed 585 family office professionals globally.
“The US pays more: it’s a more mature market,” said Paul Westall, co-founder of London-based Agreus. US family offices often have a greater amount of assets under management, “so that has something to do with the link for higher salaries.”
At least a fifth of the world’s 500 richest people now have a family office helping preserve fortunes totalling more than US$4 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. George Soros, the Wertheimer dynasty behind luxury fashion house Chanel and Hollywood studio executive Bob Shaye are among those with US firms managing their wealth, with all of them having hired veteran institutional money managers over the past decade to serve as CIOs.
The US, with the highest concentration of billionaires, is traditionally the global leader in family offices, but other wealth hubs such as Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore have made concerted efforts recently to attract the secretive firms. That’s prompted some US billionaires, including Ray Dalio and Leon Black, to open overseas branches of their family offices in Abu Dhabi.
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“A lot of family offices have been moving to this part of the world and setting up, especially in the UAE,” said Tayyab Mohamed, Agreus’s other co-founder and head of the firm’s Middle East market.
US family offices are typically based in New York, according to the report, though Texas, California and Florida are also popular locations. More than 60 per cent of the family office professionals surveyed said they’d received a salary increase since the start of last year, while a similar percentage reported getting a discretionary bonus. The most common reason cited for a raise was inflation, with personal performance coming in second.
Salaries are a major factor in family offices’ rising expenses. The most common estimated cost range of running a firm was 0.6 to 1 per cent of assets under management, a 36 per cent increase from 2023. Those pressures have contributed to an overall sense that family offices are taking a more conservative approach to recruitment, cost management and compensation, according to the report.
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Most family offices surveyed said they’d made no changes in their team structures, which the report’s authors said has played out in muted hiring activity and reflects a reluctance to expand in the face of “uncertain markets.”
“Family offices have navigated 2025 very cautiously,” Mohamed said on hiring activity. “But we are anticipating changes as things seems to be settling down.” BLOOMBERG
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