Bloomberg recently published “Billionaires Are Adapting to Trump’s New World Order,” a Family Office Focus newsletter by Benjamin Stupples and Devon Pendleton, examining how the world’s wealthiest families are repositioning their portfolios as geopolitical tensions reshape global markets.
The article describes a sharp shift in how family offices are deploying capital in the months following the war in Iran and a more assertive foreign policy posture under the second Trump administration. Rising global instability is pushing billionaires and their family offices toward sectors that stand to gain from prolonged geopolitical conflict, with commodities and other tangible holdings drawing particular interest. Some of the largest single-family offices are also reshaping where they operate around the world. London-based Alta Advisers has wound down its Hong Kong operations, Egyptian investor Nassef Sawiris has shut his London branch, and private capital poured a record $464 billion into commercial real estate last year, outpacing institutional buyers by a wide margin.
The pattern is showing up in the data as well. According to J.P. Morgan’s 2026 Global Family Office Report, 64% of family offices now cite geopolitics as the top risk to their portfolios, and those most concerned are allocating to gold at roughly twice the rate of their peers.
Speaking with Bloomberg, Wingspan Founder Christina Wing described what she is seeing among the families she advises:
“People are being driven towards hard assets right now, such as commodities. They want assets to help carry them through the volatility.”
The real question for families is not whether to move toward hard assets, but how to do it without giving up the flexibility they will need when the next opportunity appears. A commodity position or a real estate purchase can anchor a portfolio, but it can also tie up capital for years. The families that navigate moments like this well tend to be the ones who decide in advance how much liquidity they are willing to trade for stability, and who has the authority to make that call when conditions change again.
Source: J.P. Morgan Private Bank, 2026 Global Family Office Report
