Private investment firms for the world’s wealthiest families are preparing to lift exposure to both public and private equity in 2026, signalling renewed conviction after two years of cautious positioning.
According to Goldman Sachs’ Family Office Investment Insights 2025 report, nearly 40% of family offices intend to raise allocations to public equities over the next twelve months, while a similar share plans to increase commitments to private equity. The survey, covering 245 family offices globally, suggests long-term investors are repositioning portfolios toward risk assets even as markets remain defined by political tension and uneven growth.
Capital Re-Engagement
The average family office portfolio now allocates 31% to public equities, up from 28% in 2023. That increase follows a year of strong equity performance, particularly in U.S. technology names, which continue to dominate portfolio weightings. Fifty-eight percent of respondents expect to remain overweight technology, with just 5% anticipating an underweight position.
The tilt reflects more than short-term optimism. Family offices, often managing multi-generational capital, are taking advantage of volatility to add to long-duration growth sectors. “Despite being in a totally different market environment than two years ago, allocation patterns have barely moved,” said Sara Naison-Tarajano, global head of Private Wealth Management Capital Markets at Goldman Sachs. “These investors are consistent, they lean in when valuations reset.”
Private Equity: Cycles and Patience
Private equity exposure has moderated, averaging 21% of portfolios, down from 26% last year. The decline owes less to sentiment than to liquidity conditions. Global M&A activity, while improved in value terms, remains thin in volume: according to EY and Dealogic, transactions above US$100 million fell below 250 in late 2024, even as total deal value rose 30% year-on-year to roughly US$2 trillion in the first half of 2025.
The result has been slower capital turnover and more selective deployment. Still, nearly four in ten family offices intend to increase allocations to private equity in the year ahead, underscoring its role as the core alternative holding. Managers report stronger appetite for direct or co-investment structures that offer better control and fee efficiency, especially in technology, healthcare, and infrastructure platforms.
The Enduring Rise of Private Markets
The family office presence in private markets has expanded dramatically over the past decade. Data from Preqin show a 524% rise in the number of family offices with private market exposure since 2016, from 651 to more than 4,000. The growth outpaces that of endowments and wealth managers, reflecting how families have embraced illiquid assets as permanent allocations rather than tactical trades.
Aggregate wealth has also expanded. Deloitte estimates that family offices oversaw US$3.1 trillion in assets by end-2024, up 63% from 2019. With limited liquidity needs and long investment horizons, families can hold through cycles that constrain institutional peers.
“Private markets align with the way these entities think about time,” said Jonathan Flack, who leads PwC’s U.S. and global family office practice. “They provide the ability to invest over decades in a more stable growth environment relative to public markets.”
Infrastructure and Credit Take Hold
While equity allocations dominate headlines, other alternative strategies are consolidating their place. Average infrastructure allocations have reached 56% participation among surveyed family offices, supported by data-center construction, energy transition projects, and digital connectivity. Private credit holdings have inched higher to 6% of portfolios, reflecting demand for floating-rate yield in a higher-for-longer rate environment.
Infrastructure fundraising is pacing toward record levels this year. “Digitization alone is expected to drive a step-change in data-center power consumption and related capital expenditure,” Goldman’s report notes. For long-term investors, such secular shifts fit naturally within patient capital frameworks.
Regional Allocation Patterns
Allocations remain broadly even across regions, with 31% in the Americas, 32% in EMEA, and 30% in Asia-Pacific. The Americas show the strongest bias toward equities, supported by resilient U.S. economic data. Coutts Family Office, which advises several ultra-high-net-worth families, maintains an overweight to U.S. equities based on expectations that recession risk remains limited.
Asia-Pacific allocations to private equity remain the lowest, at 15%, compared with 22% in EMEA and 25% in the Americas. Exit timelines in Asian markets have lengthened, and valuations continue to recalibrate, but optimism persists. Regional investors are directing capital to late-stage technology, manufacturing automation, and AI infrastructure as governments accelerate digital-economy spending.
Navigating Risk with Discipline
Despite their willingness to add risk, family offices are acutely aware of geopolitical fragility. Sixty-one percent of respondents cited geopolitical conflict as their top investment risk, followed by political instability (39%) and economic recession (38%). Inflation and valuations ranked lower, indicating a shift from macroeconomic to political concerns.
Still, only a minority are implementing formal tail-risk hedges. “These families have seen markets recover from deep dislocations,” said Naison-Tarajano. “They treat drawdowns as buying opportunities.”
That confidence is visible in positioning. Rather than de-risking, family offices are extending their holding periods, reinvesting distributions, and concentrating exposure in themes they know well, technology, healthcare innovation, renewable energy, and logistics infrastructure.
Technology Remains the Defining Overweight
AI’s diffusion across industries has turned technology into both a cyclical and structural bet. 86% of family offices report exposure to AI-related investments, whether through public equities or private market infrastructure. Many are pairing holdings in large-cap platforms with early-stage or direct infrastructure plays, a dual-track strategy balancing liquidity and asymmetric upside.
As Meena Flynn, co-head of Goldman’s Global Private Wealth Management, observed, “A lot of the technology focus is AI-driven. Families are gaining exposure not only through equities but through assets that enable AI, energy, data storage, and compute.”
The shift underscores how family offices use their flexibility to build across asset classes rather than within silos.
Looking Ahead
Heading into 2026, allocation patterns suggest quiet confidence rather than exuberance. Roughly four in ten family offices plan to raise exposures to both public and private equity; one quarter will lift private credit positions. The message is consistent across regions: stay invested, use dislocations, and compound through cycles.
For global markets, that matters. Family offices now represent a significant reservoir of permanent capital, agile enough to deploy where traditional funds hesitate. Their participation often bridges early-stage innovation and institutional scale, a role that has grown in importance as other investor classes pull back.
In an environment still shaped by politics and policy divergence, their approach remains simple: measured risk, long duration, and conviction in underlying enterprise value.
The family office model, lean teams, patient mandates, and a generational horizon, continues to demonstrate that investing discipline can coexist with adaptability. As 2025 draws to a close, that discipline is being tested once again. So far, the data show they are holding their course, and, quietly, increasing their bets.
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