September 30, 2018 Why are we setting up a family office in Singapore? Asia has been at the forefront of wealth creation in the last few decades. Spearheaded by China open-door policy in 1978, the number of billionaires in Asia surpassed the United States for the first time in 2016, and the majority of those are creators of first-generation wealth. This means that Asia will see one of the largest wealth transfers from the first generation to the next in the next decade. Two of the richest men in Asia, Mr Li Ka-Shing and Mr Stanley Ho, both announced their retirement earlier this ye ..read more

July 18, 2018 The Cost of Complexity, The Cost of a Single-Family Office The cost of operating a single-family office can easily add up to 1.5 million USD per year. Hence, how much investable asset does a family need to have in order to make setting up a family office worthwhile? Let us dive into that here. At many conferences and summits for wealthy families that we have attended, when the topic of how much money it takes to have a single-family office comes up, the most often quoted “magic figure” is 100 million USD liquid. Whilst this ballpark figure sounds “whole”, some Single-Fam ..read more

March 20, 2020 The Change that is Family Office 16 months ago, before we opened our Singapore office on 1 Oct 2018, I wrote why we decided to setup a family office in Singapore. Fast-forward to today, much has been said about the rise of family offices; wealthy individuals and families are beginning to understand the needs and benefits of family offices. Over the past 20 years, the exponential growth of wealth here in Asia has been nothing short of staggering. According to the latest Hurun report published in February, Mainland China recorded 182 new billionaires in 2019 – representin ..read more

March 5, 2020 Understand VCC On the 15th of January 2020, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) jointly launched the Variable Capital Companies (VCC) framework. Prior to its long-anticipated launch, there was quite a significant amount of excitement within the financial sector. Many professionals and industry leaders described this new investment vehicle as being a ‘gamechanger’. How so? And what does it mean for investments in Singapore moving forward? If the capabilities and potential uses of the VCC vehicle are fully ut ..read more

November 11, 2019 Understand the Global Investor Program (GIP), 13X, 13R Schemes With the recent rise of wealth here in Asia over the past couple of decades, many affluent families are now starting to think about transitioning to the next generation. However, at this current juncture there is still a relative lack of structure in how to properly do so.   Singapore, being one of Asia’s most prominent financial hubs, has latched on to this trend and have provided several enticing policies to welcome these families to use it as a base to manage their assets by promoting the family off ..read more

May 31, 2019 Raffles Family Office Awarded The Best Independent Wealth Manager – Greater China by WealthBriefingAsia Raffles Family Office, one of Asia’s foremost Independent Wealth Manager was last night crowned ‘Best Independent Wealth Manager – Greater China at the 7th WealthBriefingAsia Singapore Awards. The awards dinner was held at the Westin Singapore and attended by our CEO, Chi Man Kwan, Managing Director, Kendrick Lee, and Director, Cara Leow. One of 22 firms to be shortlisted in the Best Independent Wealth Manager category, the triumph is yet another milestone in the Company ..read more

September 24, 2018 Introducing Private Placement Life Insurance (PPLI) What is a peace of mind? Peace of mind is when asset protection, legacy planning, compliance and taxes are no longer a concern. What is PPLI? Simply put, PPLI is a multi-jurisdictional wealth planning tool available on a private placement basis to wealthy families and high net worth individuals. Tailored to each client, therefore, it is known as private placement. It is based on life insurance and annuity policies that allow for bespoke tailored and internationally diversified investment strategies. The product is ..read more

Raffles Family Office x Antler Why family offices need to turn their attention to early-stage tech companies? The current state of the world has forced us to innovate and accelerate a lot of planned digitisation at a rate we never thought was possible. As brick and mortar businesses navigate the digital world and learn to migrate and operate online, investors also need to think innovatively to allocate their money and be part of the digital transformation and creation of companies in the new world, in a safer way for long term gains. Raffles Family Office (RFO) is a multi-family offi ..read more

Variable Capital Companies 10 FAQs 1) What are the key features of the VCC? The VCC has a very flexible structure suitable for a wide range of investment products. It can either be setup as a standalone entity or an umbrella entity with a number of sub-funds under it. To protect investors, the assets of liabilities of each sub-fund are segregated from one another. For investors who value privacy and autonomy, the VCC register of shareholders will also not be made available to the public. One of the important features is that the VCC allows for redemption of shares and payment of dividends fr ..read more

April 15, 2020 The Relevance of Family Office I am a champion of setting up family offices to allow one’s interests to be represented well and also the idea of setting these family offices up in Singapore. In my previous article published about 18 months ago, I explained the reasons why we chose to establish a presence in Singapore. With the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, many questioned whether Singapore’s attractiveness as a location to setup family offices will be impacted? My short answer is no, in fact, I strongly believe that the family office space, in Singapore and as a ..read more