"Returning to Hong Kong feels like coming home," Zhang Peng (a pseudonym) remarked with emotion in late November, gazing out at Victoria Harbour from an office building in Central, Hong Kong. A once well-known entrepreneur and investor with a net worth exceeding 1 billion RMB, Zhang had spent several years living abroad, frequently in Singapore, due to domestic disputes. Early this year, he decided to return to Hong Kong. "Although the Chinese atmosphere in Singapore is strong, I always felt like a tourist there," he explained.
In recent years, the phenomenon of Chinese billionaires congregating in Singapore attracted significant attention. However, a reversal is now underway, with many wealthy Chinese individuals beginning to leave Singapore and choosing Hong Kong as their new "home base." A report titled "Hong Kong's Wealth Management Boom: Leading the New Global Market Landscape," released on December 12 by Grant Thornton Hong Kong, has drawn considerable interest. It indicates that in the first half of this year, Hong Kong was home to 17,215 high-net-worth individuals with assets exceeding $30 million, a 22.9% increase compared to the same period in 2024. This growth makes Hong Kong the top-performing region among global leading wealth markets.
Concurrently, China's wealthy are collectively facing the challenge of wealth succession. According to the Hurun China Rich List's "2022 China High-Net-Worth Family Heritage Report," an estimated 92 trillion RMB in wealth from high-net-worth Chinese families is expected to be passed down to the next generation over the next 20 years. The competition for these Chinese billionaires is intensifying, with Hong Kong and Singapore, Asia's two major financial hubs, locked in a subtle contest.
Zhang Peng's decision to return to Hong Kong was influenced not only by the familiar language and lifestyle but also by the city's unparalleled economic dynamism. The stock market, a favored asset class for Chinese billionaires, is a prime example. Hong Kong brokers provide access to most global capital markets, and the Hong Kong stock market has been exceptionally active over the past year. A report from KPMG on December 10, "Mainland China and Hong Kong IPO Markets: 2025 Review and 2026 Outlook," noted that Hong Kong reclaimed the top spot in global IPO fundraising in 2025 for the first time since 2019. IPOs in Hong Kong this year are expected to raise HKD 272.1 billion across 100 listings, representing year-on-year increases of 210% and 43%, respectively. Notable listings include CATL <03750>, Chery Automobile, Seres, Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, Mixue Bingcheng, and Auntie Shanghai. Particularly, CATL's <03750> HKD 41 billion fundraising was the world's largest IPO this year.
Several years ago, Zhang Peng ventured into the digital currency space, becoming a top player. During his time abroad, he frequented Dubai and Singapore, attracted by their relatively friendly digital currency policies. Singapore, due to its proximity to China, was especially popular among Chinese digital currency professionals. During the pandemic, many young Chinese engaged in blockchain and Web3 startups in Singapore, hosting events and parties. This influx sometimes led to surging hotel prices in the city-state of just 6 million people, even making headlines on Chinese social media platforms. Former Chinese richest person and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao once lived extensively in Singapore. However, recently, Hong Kong has supplanted Singapore as the new favored hub for Chinese digital currency players.
Changpeng Zhao, who left China years ago, has been spotted multiple times in Hong Kong over the past year attending digital currency events. Justin Sun, founder of the Tron blockchain with a net worth of $13 billion, has also taken up long-term residence in Hong Kong, holding press conferences and participating in community activities. The digital currency exchange Huobi, which he acquired, has established an office in Hong Kong. This shift is directly linked to Hong Kong's approach to digital assets. The Hong Kong SAR government issued its "Policy Declaration on Development of Virtual Assets in Hong Kong" in October 2022, updating it to version 2.0 in June this year. Both versions emphasize positioning Hong Kong as a global hub for virtual asset innovation. Furthermore, Hong Kong's "New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme" has gained attention for its flexible investment arrangements and relaxed residency requirements. Notably, in October last year and February this year, InvestHK approved two applicants who used Bitcoin and Ethereum as proof of assets.
A key metric for assessing a location's appeal to the wealthy is the development of its family office sector. A family office is a private company dedicated to managing the wealth of ultra-high-net-worth families, typically those with assets over $100 million, offering services like investment management, tax planning, and estate planning. The first modern family office was established by oil magnate John D. Rockefeller in 1882. While family offices became popular in the US in the 1980s, the Asia-Pacific region has seen rapid growth more recently. Hong Kong and Singapore are the two major hubs in the region, fiercely competing for dominance.
In a significant move last July, Victor Li, eldest son of Li Ka-shing and chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings, announced that the Li family office would be established in Hong Kong. This decision, following speculation it might be set up in Singapore, was widely seen as a vote of confidence in Hong Kong's family office market. Compared to Singapore, Hong Kong holds certain advantages in both market scale and policy support. A report from Bank of China Hong Kong Financial Research Institute recorded that assets under management by family offices and private trust clients in Hong Kong reached HKD 1.45 trillion in 2023, a 76% increase from HKD 825 billion in 2017. According to Boston Consulting Group's "2023 Global Wealth Report," Hong Kong is Asia's largest cross-border wealth management center, second only to Switzerland globally and potentially overtaking it by 2027. Citing a Deloitte study, the BOC report also stated that by the end of 2023, Hong Kong had approximately 2,700 single-family offices managing over $1 trillion in assets, double that of Singapore.
Hong Kong has made significant efforts to attract family offices. The 2022 Policy Address highlighted family offices as a key growth area and proposed tax concessions. In March 2023, the government released a policy declaration outlining eight measures to attract global families, including relaxed immigration conditions and establishing a wealth inheritance academy. By October 9 this year, the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau announced that InvestHK had successfully assisted over 200 family offices in establishing or expanding in Hong Kong, achieving the target set in the 2022 Policy Address ahead of schedule. Furthermore, Hong Kong's requirements for setting up a family office are more lenient than Singapore's. For instance, Hong Kong does not mandate local investment, whereas Singapore requires 10% of AUM to be invested locally; Hong Kong has no pre-approval requirement, unlike Singapore; and the AUM threshold for tax benefits is HKD 240 million in Hong Kong compared to HKD 280 million in Singapore.
Just a few years ago, Singapore's family offices were highly popular among Chinese billionaires. Public information indicates that individuals like Zhang Yong, founder of Haidilao; Liang Xinjun, co-founder of Fosun Group; and Zhong Renhai, chairman of Zhejiang Hongji Petrochemical, established family offices in Singapore. Some Chinese billionaires even obtained Singaporean citizenship, altering the local wealth landscape. In 2018, Haidilao's Zhang Yong became a Singapore citizen and topped the Forbes Singapore Rich List the following year. Li Xiting, founder of Mindray Medical, who acquired Singaporean citizenship around 2015, became Singapore's richest person in 2021 and 2022. During the pandemic, Singapore's family office sector exploded, growing from 400 in 2020 to 1,400 by end-2023, and reaching 2,000 single-family offices by the end of 2024. Besides Chinese billionaires, other global figures like Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin also set up family offices in Singapore.
However, amidst this boom, Singapore's family office market has been shadowed by money laundering and embezzlement scandals. In August 2023, Singapore police uncovered the nation's largest-ever money laundering case, involving 16.4 billion RMB derived from organized crime like telecom fraud and online gambling. Some suspects had used family offices in Singapore to manage assets and launder money. This led Singapore to tighten regulations, raising thresholds for AUM and local investment, and demanding more transparency. In October this year, another global telecom fraud case linked to Singapore's family office market emerged, involving the notorious Prince Group and its chairman, Cambodian-Chinese businessman Chen Zhi, accused of crypto fraud and money laundering, with US authorities freezing $15 billion in Bitcoin. Additionally, in March, Zhong Renhai accused former employees at his Singapore family office of embezzling $55.5 million through forged documents and excessive salary withdrawals between 2019 and 2022.
In the coming years, the competition for high-net-worth individuals between these two Asian financial hubs is set to intensify further.
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