Family offices are accelerating a strategic shift toward direct investments as deepening geopolitical volatility and shifting power dynamics force long-term rethinking among the world’s wealthiest families.
Brazil’s alignment with China this week has underscored Beijing’s expanding global influence. From Latin America to the Gulf, China is forging new economic partnerships and increasing its reach just as the US, under President Donald Trump, revives unpredictable tariff threats and disengages from multilateral leadership.
Tensions around Taiwan, ongoing instability in the Middle East, and recalibration efforts across Europe have added to the sense that old global certainties are no longer reliable.
In response, many ultra-wealthy families are restructuring how and where their capital is held.
As part of this trend, deVere Group launched a dedicated family office last October to meet the demands of families rethinking governance, control, and long-term purpose.
A family office handles investment and wealth management and legal matters for a wealthy family, generally one with more than $75 million in investable assets, with the objective being to effectively grow and transfer wealth across generations.
“There’s a growing understanding that yesterday’s infrastructure — politically and financially — doesn’t serve the realities of today,” said Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group. “What we’re seeing isn’t a portfolio rebalancing. It’s a re-engineering of how wealth is stewarded in a world that no longer operates on inherited assumptions.”
Historically, many family offices relied heavily on third-party asset managers and public markets, prioritizing capital preservation through passive strategies.
“Today, that model is being dismantled,” Green said. “Families are pulling capital out of institutions and reallocating it directly into companies, infrastructure, and private projects they believe in and can influence.”
deVere’s family office provides legal structuring, governance planning, investment coordination, and intergenerational education, with a focus on discretion, oversight, and the ability to move across borders. The platform reflects how elite families now want to operate: privately, directly, and with maximum flexibility.
Public markets are playing a smaller role in many family portfolios. Instead, capital is being deployed into private equity, infrastructure, early-stage technology, and climate-linked assets, especially in regions viewed as more economically dynamic and politically ascendant.
“Families want to invest in what they understand and believe in,” Green said. “That means long-horizon commitments to sectors that matter — food security, clean energy, resilient supply chains — and to regions they believe will define the next era.”
This shift is being led in part by the next generation. As leadership transitions within family networks, new voices are pushing for more intentional use of capital, not just financially, but socially and environmentally.
“Legacy is no longer defined purely by preservation; it’s also about impact, identity, and adaptability,” Green added.
Meanwhile, Europe, while facing structural challenges, is actively working to modernize its internal cohesion and strategic posture.
From defence collaboration to green investment and industrial competitiveness, policymakers are trying to position the EU as a more self-directed economic bloc — even if coordination remains a work in progress.
Still, the sense among global families is that no single political system or geography can be depended on. Structures that rely too heavily on any one jurisdiction are increasingly seen as fragile.
This has placed a renewed emphasis on flexibility, transparency, and cross-border optionality — and on family office models that can adapt to both generational and geopolitical shifts.
“What’s changed is that families are no longer building around the system,” said Green. “They’re building around themselves — their values, their priorities, and the world they believe is coming next.
“The old model of inherited structures quietly ticking over doesn’t hold in a world defined by geopolitical fracture and generational change. Family offices are being rebuilt — not for preservation, but for control in a new global reality.”