What do Asia’s rich park their wealth in as global risks grow? High-net-worth individuals favour private markets, ‘safer’ assets over stocks, crypto

Swiss private bank Lombard Odier’s study found that wealthy APAC investors are increasingly conservative amid current global market volatility

They are steering clear of digital assets like cryptocurrency and sticking to private markets, ‘safer’ assets like gold, cash

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Modern and luxury homes in Singapore, at the Keppel Bay Yacht Marina area. The rich in Singapore and Australia are leading the trend, with about 60 per cent of them planning to increase their allocations to private markets. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 12:00am, 8 Sep 2022Updated: 2:16pm, 8 Sep 2022

With growing concerns over rising inflation and market volatility, Asia’s wealthy are turning cautious.

People with more than US$1 million of investible funds are repositioning towards private markets to shield their assets from market volatility, Lombard Odier’s 2022 study about high-net-worth individuals in Asia-Pacific found.

They have increasingly shunned stocks and bonds to focus on their own companies or assets deemed safer such as gold and cash. At the same time, they’ve largely stayed clear of cryptocurrency, which has proved particularly volatile.

“APAC investors are becoming more conservative in their portfolio construction and are diverting to ‘safer’ alternative and private assets, whilst increasingly diversifying beyond their local markets,” Vincent Magnenat, Lombard Odier’s Asia head, wrote in a statement.

“Allocation to digital assets is extremely low,” he added at a press briefing on Wednesday.

A slump in tech stocks and soaring inflation amid rising interest rates have shaved off US$1.4 trillion from the cumulative wealth of the world’s 500 richest people in the first half of 2022, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

That is a reversal from the past two years, when central-bank largesse to combat the effects of Covid-19 helped boost assets and personal fortunes with them.