A decade ago, an allocation to private equity or private credit was the preserve of large institutions. Today it is a defining feature of how families of significant wealth invest. Preqin projects the global alternatives market will reach roughly $32 trillion in assets under management by 2030, with private equity approaching $12 trillion, private credit around $4.5 trillion, and infrastructure close to tripling toward $3 trillion.
Families have led much of this growth. The number of family offices with an allocation to private markets has risen by more than 500% since 2016, and private assets are now a structural part of the family-office portfolio rather than a satellite position.
Industry data via CNBC, 2025
What the typical family portfolio now looks like
The UBS Global Family Office Report 2025, which surveyed 317 single family offices with an average net worth of $2.7 billion, shows just how far the balance sheet has moved toward private and real assets. Equities remain the largest single class, but alternatives together now rival them.
| Asset class | Allocation |
|---|---|
| Equities | 30% |
| Private equity | 21% |
| Fixed income | 18% |
| Real estate | 11% |
| Cash | 8% |
| Hedge funds | 4% |
| Private debt | 4% |
| Other (gold, infrastructure, art) | 4% |
UBS Global Family Office Report 2025
The direction of travel is not uniform. The same report found families planning to trim direct private-equity exposure modestly in 2025, from around 21% toward 18%, while adding to private credit. The headline is not relentless accumulation; it is active rebalancing within a portfolio where private assets are now permanent.
Why illiquidity changes the planning problem
Private markets reward patience with an illiquidity premium, but they impose a discipline in return. Capital is called over years and returned over years, on a schedule the investor does not control. A family that has committed too much, too fast, can find itself a forced seller at the worst possible moment.
This is why a credible plan starts not from a target allocation but from a liquidity floor: the share of the portfolio that must remain accessible within a defined horizon. Every private-market commitment is then tested against that constraint, and the engine that models the family's scenarios has to respect it. The premium is only worth capturing if the family can hold the position through a cycle in which distributions slow and calls do not.
The families who do well in private markets are not the ones who chase the highest return. They are the ones who never become forced sellers.
The reporting gap
As private assets grow, so does the difficulty of explaining them. Valuations are infrequent, performance is lumpy, and a single number rarely tells the whole story. Families increasingly expect the same transparency from a private-markets sleeve that they get from listed holdings. Advisers who can show how each commitment fits the policy, and what it does to liquidity and risk across named scenarios, are far better placed than those relying on a spreadsheet rebuilt by hand each quarter.
The rise of private credit
If one corner of private markets captures the current moment, it is private credit. As banks retreated from mid-market lending, families and family offices stepped in, drawn by floating rates, contractual income and terms they could shape. Preqin expects private credit to reach around $4.5 trillion by 2030, among the fastest-growing of all alternative classes. For a family seeking income without the volatility of listed equity, it has become a natural building block, provided the credit work behind it is genuine and the illiquidity is planned for.
The breadth of the opportunity is matched by the difficulty of doing it well. Manager selection matters more in private markets than almost anywhere else: the gap between top-quartile and median performance is wide and persistent. Diligence, pacing and a clear view of how each commitment fits the whole are not optional extras. They are the difference between capturing the premium and merely paying for the privilege of illiquidity.
Complexity is the real cost
Running a substantial private-markets programme is not cheap to administer. Operating a single family office typically costs between roughly 0.35% and 0.44% of assets a year, much of it spent on the people and systems needed to track commitments, calls, distributions and valuations across dozens of vehicles. The mechanical work of keeping that picture current, and reconciling it to the family's policy, is precisely the work that should be automated, so that the adviser's time goes to judgement rather than to spreadsheets.
The shift into private markets is, at heart, a shift in time horizon. It rewards families who plan in decades and punishes those who plan in quarters. The role of the adviser is to make that long horizon legible, constraint by constraint, so the premium can be earned without the portfolio ever being cornered, and without the reporting becoming a quarterly act of archaeology.
Sources: Preqin, Private Markets in 2030; UBS Global Family Office Report 2025; CNBC (2025). Figures are projections and survey averages.