Hong Kong To Host Family Offices Forum

The Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Christopher Hui, on Friday announced that a forum will be held next month in a bid to get family offices and businesses to move to the SAR.

Earlier this week, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said in his budget speech that the government will give InvestHK HK$100 million to attract more family offices to Hong Kong.

Hui said the forum has been given the title “Wealth for Good in Hong Kong” and this spells out the government’s objectives.

“There are two meanings – one, 'lasting'. After all family businesses have the feature that is different from other businesses – they hope that they will have a financial heritage passing on to other generations,” he said.

“Next, 'good' means 'good deeds'. We can see that onto the second and the third generations, they are not looking for financial rewards. They are looking for rewards with impact investment, that is, at the community level,” said Hui, adding that this includes charity work and ESG [environmental, social and governance] investments.

Hui did not disclose the scale of the businesses the government hopes to persuade to move to the city, saying details of the forum will be announced in due course.