Reviewed through 1 August 2026
For the first time in the history of the UBS Global Family Office Report, sixty percent of surveyed family offices say they intend to change their strategic asset allocation in the next twelve months. That is up from thirty-five percent a year earlier, and twenty-seven percent the year before. It is the steepest recorded rise in repositioning intent UBS has on file.
The 2026 cohort surveyed 307 offices with average family net worth of USD 2.7 billion and average office AUM of USD 1.3 billion, between 22 January and 30 March 2026. The headline split between traditional and alternative assets is unchanged at fifty-eight / forty-two. The shift is in composition, not in the category mix.
60%
plan to change strategic allocation in the next 12 months
Up from 35% in 2025 and 27% in 2024 (UBS GFO 2026, n=307).
Rebalancing intent has doubled in two years
ChartChart
Family offices planning to change strategic allocation
60% of family offices intend to adjust their strategic allocation in the next 12 months, the highest share ever recorded by UBS.
Source: UBS Global Family Office Report 2026.
Where the money is moving
Equities are planned to rise from thirty to thirty-three percent of the average portfolio. Private equity is set to fall from twenty-one to seventeen percent among offices making changes. Real estate is the most visible cut: the average weighting is expected to drop from eleven percent in 2025 to eight percent among those repositioning. That is the largest single-line reduction in the survey.
The drivers UBS flags are familiar but sharper this year. Geopolitical tension, the trade environment, the dollar outlook, and the uneven exit environment for private equity. Sixty-four percent of offices cite a major geopolitical conflict as their top twelve-month risk, the highest reading in the report.
Current weights versus planned weights
ChartChart
Family office portfolio allocation (%)
Average weights across 307 family offices (USD 1.3bn average AUM).
Source: UBS Global Family Office Report 2026.
A rebalancing cycle is not an event. It is a workflow that touches every line in the policy statement.
Why this matters operationally
When sixty percent of offices are repositioning at once, the bottleneck moves from conviction to execution. The desks that finish the year ahead of plan are not the ones with the sharpest view on the dollar. They are the ones that wrote the rebalancing policy before the year started: trigger thresholds, approval rights, currency hedging rules, counterparty limits, and the IC quorum for each line.
Without that scaffolding, a rebalancing cycle becomes a stream of one-off decisions, each one requiring a fresh meeting and a fresh sign-off. The principal ends up making individual allocation choices the office was hired to make. That is the operational tax most offices pay in a year like this one.
Where Vereles sees the work
On a mandate that includes a rebalancing year, we start by auditing the existing policy statement against the planned moves. Are strategic tilts separated from discretionary ones? Is there a written rule for currency hedging on each equity bucket? Does the committee charter specify quorum for line changes above a threshold? Most offices have the policy; few have it current, signed, and matched to the way the desk actually decides.
What a principal takes away.
- 01A 60% rebalancing intent is structural, not cyclical. Plan the policy before the trades, not after.
- 02Real estate is the largest line cut. The question for offices is whether they can underwrite direct ownership while rates, insurance, and cap rates are all repricing at once.
- 03Private equity is being trimmed largely on exit environment, not on thesis. Document cost basis, holding period, and DPI before reducing.
- 04In a year this volatile, the desks that win are the ones with written IC terms, currency rules, and trigger thresholds ready to sign.