Family Offices; Australia’s Silent Wealth Revolution

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Australia’s silent wealth revolution: How family offices are reshaping the investment landscape

By Lily Brown

The quiet rise

In March 2023, with minimal fanfare but significant market impact, Grok Ventures, tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes’ family office, secured a pivotal 11.3% stake in AGL Energy ((AGL)), successfully blocking the energy giant’s proposed de-merger and forcing a strategic pivot toward renewable energy.

With an investment of approximately -$650m, this marked one of the most consequential climate-focused activist campaigns by an Australian family office to date.

This high-profile intervention represents just the visible tip of a much larger phenomenon. According to Will Lawrence, a private client partner at US-based investment firm Cambridge Associates, “Many managers see the family office sector as a crucial area for expanding their LP [limited partner] bases.”

What are family offices?

“Family offices are uniquely positioned to be able to take a long-term view, whilst also having the ability to be nimble in their decision-making to take advantage of opportunities”, noted Katherine Cox, Global Head of Long-Term Asset Owners, about the investment.

Australia has approximately 2000 family offices –private wealth management firms serving ultra-high-net-worth families– which are emerging as quiet power players, reshaping investment markets with a long lens and patient capital.

Unlike their institutional counterparts, they move with stealth, unburdened by quarterly reporting pressures or public scrutiny. And their influence is growing exponentially.

Where is this wealth coming from?

According to Knight Frank’s 2023 Wealth Report, Australia saw a 2.1% increase in ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI) in 2022, despite global economic headwinds and a fall in UHNWI numbers in many other parts of the world, including the US.

And these numbers are set to grow. The millionaire population Down Under is projected to grow by 21%, swelling by 400,000 by 2028.

This wealth explosion stems from multiple sources. “There’s been a significant increase in wealth from a variety of sectors, even if you look at rural sector and the price of land and cattle, we’ve also seen a lot of people who’ve been flying under the radar with businesses which have [suddenly] had a liquidity event,” said James Burkitt, the founder of family office group The Table Club.

Australia’s property market created significant wealth, with ABC News reporting the total value of residential dwellings has more than doubled from $5.1trn to $10.9trn between June 2014 and June 2024 an extraordinary $5.78trn increase.

Even more remarkable, $3.6trn of this wealth creation occurred in just four years, highlighting the unprecedented acceleration in property values that has fundamentally transformed household balance sheets across the country.

According to White & Case’s M&A Explorer 2024, Australia recorded 996 deals in 2024, up from 958 in 2023, with both strategic buyers and private equity sponsors actively participating.

Total deal value jumped to US$92.3bn (approximately $138.5bn), rising 30% from the previous year’s US$71bn (approximately $106.5bn). Excluding the outlier post-pandemic year of 2021, 2024’s total deal value was the highest since 2019, creating another wealth stream in the market.

Australia’s superannuation system has further accelerated private wealth accumulation. The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) reported total superannuation assets reached $4.2trn at the end of 2024, with self-managed super funds (SMSFs) holding $1.02trn.

Inside the machine: Who’s behind the curtain?

Australia’s family office sector remains deliberately low-profile, but certain power brokers have emerged as influential forces.

Many are led by the wealth creators themselves, including entrepreneurs like Atlassian co-founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, whose respective family offices Grok Ventures and Skip Capital have become major players in climate tech and venture capital.

“Leading a family office requires treating it as a professional enterprise, not a side project,” says Mr Saslow, author of Building a sustainable family office. And since the founder mentality never really disappears, it makes sense to see entrepreneurs who built businesses from scratch bringing that same hands-on approach to their investment entities.

They’re not passive capital allocators but active builders looking for the next great frontier.

Increasingly, next-generation family members are taking the helm, often bringing new perspectives shaped by international education and values that prioritise impact alongside returns.

KPMG’s Global Family Office Compensation report for 2023 found 36% of Australian family office CEOs came from an investment management background, and 23% were family members themselves. All the CEOs included in the report were university educated.

Interestingly, 2023 data show that while male millionaires in Australia are growing at 3.6% per year, female millionaires are growing at a rate of 5.7% per year.

The main drivers for this change are more women in the workforce, with higher pays in traditionally male-dominated industries; a surge in women entrepreneurship; and intergenerational wealth transfer.

Rewriting the playbook on how they invest: Alternative and environmental investments take priority

This wealth explosion has driven a structural shift in how fortunes are managed. Traditional wealth advisory has given way to sophisticated family office structures; from investments and philanthropy to succession planning and tax strategy.

Recent data from Deloitte’s Family Office Trends 2024 report show the top asset classes APAC family offices invested in were equities (25%), private equity and direct lending (21%), real estate (19%), and fixed income (19%), accounting for more than 84% of their average portfolio.

The report also indicated they planned to increase their allocations to developed market equities (32%) and real estate (31%) in 2024. Rebecca Gooch, global head of insights for Deloitte Private, called private equity “the darling of the asset classes amongst family offices.”

Climate-aligned investments have become particularly prominent. Besides Grok Ventures, this trend is exemplified by several other prominent examples.

The Daniel Besen family office recently became an anchor investor in Climate Tech Partners, a new Melbourne-based venture capital fund approaching its first close with commitments exceeding US$35m (approximately $54.5m).

Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s family office has expanded its sustainability portfolio through investments in renewable energy projects across Australia

Lisa Miller, former Canva executive, now runs her own family office, Wedgetail, which backs biodiversity-focused initiatives like Zorzal, a cacao farming venture protecting bird habitats in the Appalachian Mountains.

Infrastructure and ecosystem

Supporting the growth of family offices is a rapidly evolving ecosystem of service providers and technology platforms.

KMPG research found that 40% of family offices considered themselves to be heavily reliant on technology. They count better efficiency and productivity (84%), improved reporting (72%), and enhanced portfolio management (56%) as the benefits of doing so, but 46% were self-admittedly limited in their usage of technology.

This gap is what holds a lot of family offices back. “Digitalisation is the glue that holds multi-generation wealth together. Family offices will struggle to survive –let alone thrive– without it,” said Chelsea Smith, a senior national director of family office advisory services at a private wealth management firm.

Luckily, technological support is now easier to obtain than ever. According to Franklin Templeton Institute’s 2023-2024 wealth management transformation report, family offices are increasingly leveraging cloud-based processing, big data analytics, and AI tools that were once the exclusive domain of institutional investors.

These technologies have democratised access to sophisticated investment capabilities while enabling more scientific portfolio construction approaches that blend quantitative assessments with fundamental analysis.

Family offices are also adopting robust content portals with journey-tracking tools and cohort analyses to understand investment behaviour patterns and optimise decision-making processes.

This shift toward data-driven customisation is enabling a more holistic approach to wealth management, with family offices increasingly building bespoke multi-asset class and outcome-oriented solutions rather than focusing merely on individual funds or investments.

Legacy, succession, and philanthropy

Australia’s affluent families have long had strong ties to real estate, with figures like Frank Lowy and property mogul Lang Walker building their fortunes through property investments.

However, many family offices run by the next generation are now expanding into other industries to diversify their portfolios. For example, the children of the late John Saunders –who co-founded Westfield alongside Frank Lowy– have developed a robust private lending arm within their family office, Terrace Tower Group.

As Australia’s family office sector matures, attention is increasingly turning to how wealth is passed down and how it can serve broader societal goals.

“As wealth transitions to successive generations branches of family might become more independent of each other and their needs may diverge,” noted Chris Graves, an associate professor at the University of Adelaide Business School.

Structured communication tools are becoming increasingly important in helping younger family members understand the overarching investment strategy and long-term vision. Without clear guidance, there’s a growing risk that investment choices may drift from the next generation’s priorities, especially as younger heirs show stronger interest in ESG and impact-focused investing.

“If you’re not engaging the next generation, you risk making investment decisions that don’t align with their values,” said Chelsea Smith, senior national director of family office advisory services at Bernstein Private Wealth Management in the US.

To bridge that gap, some families are experimenting with creative ways to connect, like using private social media platforms such as Instagram to share values and educate younger members about wealth stewardship.

Bernstein has embraced this shift by developing an interactive online learning module that brings next-gen family members together in a structured digital space, culminating in face-to-face networking events that strengthen both knowledge and relationships. “Meeting them where they are and how they like to learn is critical,” Ms Smith added.

The new power brokers

As Australia, like the rest of the world, navigates an increasingly complex economic future, family offices are emerging as uniquely positioned stewards of capital with growing influence across the investment landscape.

Jeff Steiner, Mutual Trust’s Head of Family Office, emphasises purpose-driven wealth activation. “Just imagine the entrepreneurial, philanthropic, financial, and personal energy that can be unlocked if every family enterprise has a clear sense of purpose for its wealth and a strategy to live it,” he sums up.

In an era of short-term thinking, these quiet power brokers represent something increasingly valuable; investors with both the means and motivation to take the long view on Australia’s future.

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