Family offices across North America are retreating from last year’s exuberance and embracing resilience in the face of renewed volatility. The optimism that marked 2024 has given way to caution in 2025 as rising tariffs, political uncertainty and fears of U.S. dollar depreciation reshape how the world’s wealthiest families invest.
According to the Campden Wealth North America Family Office Report 2025, expected returns have dropped sharply from 11 per cent last year to just five per cent, marking a sharp reversal in sentiment from the optimism of 2024. Instead of chasing growth equities, family offices are stockpiling cash, adding gold, and cautiously testing crypto.
Caution over optimism
The report, based on 317 global family office responses, shows that cash is now the top-performing and most preferred asset class for the next 12 months. More than half of North American family offices believe it will deliver the best returns – a telling sign of how geopolitical tensions and market swings have driven investors toward liquidity and safety.
The shift in sentiment was triggered by a turbulent first half of 2025, when trade tariffs rattled global equity markets before a sharp ‘V-shaped’ recovery restored indexes like the NASDAQ and S&P 500 to all-time highs. Despite that rebound, caution remains.
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‘I’m concerned about the volatility of the U.S. dollar,’ one chief investment officer told Campden Wealth. ‘Even if [trade] issues are settled tomorrow, the damage to confidence in the currency is likely to be permanent.’
Family offices now see tariffs and inflation as the twin threats most likely to crystallize in the near term, with both seen as drivers of dollar weakness. Many expect tariffs to constrain global growth and prompt a wave of higher prices.
Gold shows it never truly leaves
Few symbols of caution are as timeless as gold – and it’s back in favour. Once dismissed by institutional investors as a ‘non-productive asset,’ gold has become one of the best-performing asset classes of 2024 and continues to attract new allocations.
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Nearly a quarter of family offices now hold gold, even though it represents only around one per cent of the average portfolio. The metal’s appeal lies in its ability to hedge against both inflation and dollar depreciation – a hedge that feels increasingly valuable in a period of trade realignment and political flux.
Crypto enters the conversation
If gold is the old hedge, crypto is the new experiment. The report finds that 14 per cent of family offices now hold cryptocurrency, though most treat it as a small, exploratory position rather than a major bet.
Despite its volatility, crypto’s inclusion among ultra-wealthy portfolios reflects a quiet but notable change in sentiment. The SEC’s approval of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the emergence of stablecoins – cryptocurrencies pegged to the dollar to reduce volatility – have given digital assets a legitimacy they previously lacked.
‘There’s been a serious shakeout in crypto,’ the report notes, ‘and the surviving coins and tokens are there to support underlying technologies.’
Still, many family offices remain cautious. While around 14 per cent have made small allocations, most are limiting exposure or holding back until regulation improves. Even so, crypto’s presence on the radar of multi-billion-dollar wealth managers signals that digital assets are moving from the fringe toward the mainstream.
Private markets hold long-term appeal
Despite the retreat into cash and gold, private equity and venture capital remain the asset classes family offices believe will deliver the best risk-adjusted returns over the long term. Private markets now account for 29 per cent of the average family office portfolio, even as short-term performance in 2025 has fallen below expectations.
The shift isn’t about abandoning risk, but redefining it. Family offices are positioning themselves to weather volatility while preserving the flexibility to invest when new opportunities emerge.
The human factor behind the strategy
The report also underscores that people – not portfolios – remain the enduring differentiator. Talent retention, succession planning, and next-generation education are cited as the most critical non-financial factors in long-term success.
In 2025, 69 per cent of family offices have formal succession plans, up from 53 per cent a year earlier, reflecting a growing awareness that wealth preservation is as much about structure and culture as it is about markets.
A new definition of resilience
Taken together, the findings paint a portrait of UHNWs recalibrating for a less predictable world, struck by tarriffs, inflation, political instability and faced with technological disruption.
Cash, gold, and crypto may not have much in common – but for family offices in 2025, they share one critical feature: independence from the dollar’s fate.
As the report concludes, ‘No two family offices face the same challenges, [but] what unites them is the need to navigate uncertainty with clarity of purpose and readiness to adapt.’
