Wealthy Families Increasingly Question Where in the World to Keep Their Assets

Ultra-rich families have often run their wealth from a single-family office located where their business exists, or their money was made, and where most members of their family live. But the dynamics for many of these families has radically changed as their businesses, homes, and children spread across the world, according to a report from Citi Private Bank.

Dealing with multiple jurisdictions creates possibilities but also complexities and raises a question for families of where the bulk of their assets should reside, as the bank details in the report, titled Asset Location and Global Mobility. Citi, through its global family office group, works with 1,800 family offices with an average net worth of US$2 billion, says Hannes Hofmann, head of the group.

“A lot more families are now saying, ‘how do you professionalize the decision where these assets are sitting?’” Hofmann says.

Citi’s family office clients are very global. In a survey published last week, 71% of the bank’s clients reported that they were international in some way. Of that group, 53% said they have assets in multiple countries; 44% cited having family members in several countries; and 19% said they have family who are considering a move to another country or changing their citizenship.

Potential changes to tax regulations affecting the wealthy resulting from elections in the U.K. and France in Europe, and several countries in Latin America, could spark further globalisation of the world’s wealthiest families, the survey said.

In selecting a location for a family office, Citi recommends considering four criteria: the stability of the country’s financial, economic, and political systems; its financial and legal infrastructure; access to talent and cost considerations; and convenience, “including where family members live, work, and play,” the report said.

“We’re telling everyone: As you think about your asset strategy, you want safety that there’s a rule of law and there’s also a financial system that will protect your assets if things go wrong,” Hofmann says. “We might assume this is something that you get everywhere in the world, but the truth is you don’t.”

Strong financial and legal infrastructure also ensures families can find informed advisors and that regulations are secure, supporting, for instance, the movement of assets across jurisdictions.

The purpose of Citi’s report is to show how the four criteria are interlinked, Hofmann says. It may make sense to place a family office in a major wealth centre such as the U.S., Switzerland, or Singapore, but assets can also be kept in jurisdictions such as Jersey in the Channel Islands, or Luxembourg, Monaco, and Dubai.

The report details key factors in each of these places. Monaco, for instance, is less than a square mile in size but “has for centuries attracted the wealthiest families in the world given its favorable tax system, robust, if limited economy, safety, advanced medical facilities, and agreeable Mediterranean climate,” Citi said.

The Bahamas, meanwhile, is a politically and economically stable country just off of Florida’s east coast, making it convenient to the U.S., Canada, and Central and South America.

The U.S., meanwhile, accounts for 32% of global liquid investable wealth, and attracts ultra wealthy individuals with its “almost unrivalled breadth of education, lifestyle, business, innovation, and investing opportunities.”

“People need to think about these places and where they want to have their assets, where they want to base their residency, and then of course, what potentially their exit strategies and contingency plans are,” Hofmann says. The latter is important for a world facing rising instability and conflict.

For those who don’t have a plan in place yet, the report offers several locations where golden visas and residency programs offer a path to a backup location, such as Spain, Malta, St. Kitts and Nevis, and New Zealand. Most of these are countries where the wealthy already have connections through education or business interests, the report said.

Some of these jurisdictions don’t have tax regimes or their tax regulations don’t apply for short stays. As a result, people are choosing to become “tax nomads”—dividing their time between countries so they don’t spend long enough in one place to be taxed.

“There are some very wealthy people [who] we work with and some very wealthy families who’ve taken this global location topic to an art form,” Hofmann says.

“A lot of people want to be in L.A. or Miami or New York and London, so you can spend a third of the year in the U.K. and the U.S. and then the remainder of the year you spend in other places and you’re not a tax resident anywhere for tax purposes,” he says.

This strategy is “completely legal,” Hofmann adds. “This is not tax avoidance, it’s just tax management.”

Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu delivered a warning to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a recent visit to Washington: Already-high airfares will surge if the war in Iran doesn’t end soon.

Sununu, a Republican who represents some of the biggest airlines as president of the industry group Airlines for America, has for weeks sounded the alarm to Trump administration officials about the economic fallout from high jet fuel prices. The war, Sununu has argued, must come to a close soon, or things will get worse.

Administration officials have gotten the message.

Privately, President Trump’s advisers are increasingly worried that Republicans will pay a political price for the rising fuel costs, according to people familiar with the matter. Many of those advisers are eager to end the war, hoping prices will begin to moderate before November’s midterm elections.

The fallout from the U.S.-Israeli attack in late February has slowed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane, triggering a sharp increase in oil, gasoline and jet-fuel prices.

That means consumers are grappling with high costs ahead of the summer travel season, as they consider vacation plans.

Sixty-three per cent of Americans said they put a great deal or a good amount of blame on Trump for the increase in gas prices, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, PBS and Marist.

More than 8 in 10 Americans said struggles at the gas pump are putting strain on their finances.

Jet-fuel prices roughly doubled in a matter of weeks after the war began, and they have remained high. Airlines have said that will add billions of dollars of additional expenses this year, squeezing profit margins.

U.S. airlines spent more than $5 billion on fuel in March—up 30% from a year earlier, according to government data.

Carriers have been raising ticket prices, hoping to pass the cost along to consumers, and they are culling flights that will no longer make money at higher price levels.

In March, the price of a U.S. domestic round-trip economy ticket rose 21% from a year earlier to $570, according to Airlines Reporting Corp., which tracks travel-agency sales.

So far, airlines have said the higher fares haven’t deterred bookings and they are hoping to recoup more of the fuel-cost increases as the year goes on.

Earlier this week, Trump said the current price of oil is “a very small price to pay for getting rid of a nuclear weapon from people that are really mentally deranged.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that if Iran got a nuclear weapon, the country would have more leverage to keep the strait closed and “make our gas prices like $9 a gallon or $8 a gallon.”

Trump has taken steps in recent days to bring the war to an end. Late Tuesday, the president paused a plan to help guide trapped commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz, expressing optimism that a deal could be reached with Iran to end the conflict.

Crude oil prices fell below $100 a barrel on Wednesday, after reports that Iran and the U.S. are working with mediators on a one-page framework to restart negotiations aimed at ending the conflict and opening the strait.

Sununu said Trump administration officials are conscious of the economic fallout from the war: “They get it…and I think that’s why they’re trying to get through the war as fast as they can.”

But he cautioned that it could take months for prices to return to prewar levels.

“Ticket prices won’t go down immediately” after the strait is fully reopened, Sununu said. “You’re looking at elevated ticket prices through the summer and fall because it takes a while for the prices to go down.”

Since the initial U.S.-Israeli attack in late February, Sununu has met in Washington with National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, representatives from the Transportation Department and senior White House officials.

A White House official confirmed that Hassett and Sununu have discussed the effect of increased fuel prices on the airline industry. The official said the conversation touched on how the industry can mitigate the impact of high jet fuel prices on consumers.

“The president and his entire energy team anticipated these short-term disruptions to the global energy markets from Operation Epic Fury and had a plan prepared to mitigate these disruptions,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said, pointing to the administration’s decision to waive a century-old shipping law in a bid to lower the cost of moving oil.

Rogers said the administration is working with industry representatives to “address their concerns, explore potential actions, and inform the president’s policy decisions.”

A Treasury Department spokesman pointed to Bessent’s recent comments on Fox News that the U.S. economy remains strong despite price increases. The spokesman said Treasury officials have met with airline executives, who have reaffirmed strong ticket bookings.

“We’re cognizant that this short-term move up in prices is affecting the American people, but I am also confident, on the other side of this, prices will come down very quickly,” Bessent told Fox News on Monday.

The war has already contributed to one casualty in the industry: Spirit Airlines. Company representatives have said they were forced to close the airline because the sustained surge in jet-fuel prices derailed the company’s plan to emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Trump administration and Spirit failed to come to an agreement for the company to receive a financial lifeline of as much as $500 million from the federal government.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has argued that the Iran war wasn’t the cause of Spirit’s demise, pointing to the company’s past financial struggles, as well as the Biden administration’s decision to challenge a merger with JetBlue.

Other budget airlines have also turned to the federal government for help since the U.S.-Israeli attack. A group of budget airlines last month sought $2.5 billion in financial assistance to offset higher fuel costs, and they separately wrote to lawmakers asking for relief from certain ticket taxes.

Wealthy Families Increasingly Question Where in the World to Keep Their Assets

A question for wealthy folks with homes, businesses, and family members all over the world is where to park their assets.

Administration officials have spoken to the airline industry, which has voiced concerns about the rising costs.