SINGAPORE: A report in CNBC highlighted Singapore as a rising philanthropy hub in the region, with the number of family offices there also on the rise.
Education, healthcare, poverty alleviation, and environmental causes are among the initiatives supported by the wealthy in Singapore.
A family office is a private wealth management firm that caters to ultra-high-net-worth individuals — people who have $1 million or more in liquid financial assets. Singapore’s low taxes, high security, and generous incentives for family offices have consistently lured the global elite.
Among those who have set up family offices in Singapore are Google co-founder Sergey Brin, UK inventor James Dyson, and Bridgewater Associates founder and hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio.
Citing the social impact consultancy Soristic, the CNBC report said that, in 2023, the most recent year for which figures are available, the number one donor based in the city-state was the Low Tuck Kwong Foundation. It gave away an eye-watering $127.6 million. The foundation is named after Indonesian billionaire businessman Low Tuck Kwong, the founder and president director of Bayan Resources.
The majority of the foundation’s donations went to the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Meanwhile, Ray Dalio’s organization, Dalio Philanthropies, sponsored a programme in 2024 for almost 400 teachers and young people in Singapore that taught them about ocean science and maritime operations.
Dalio Philanthropies is part of the Philanthropy Asia Alliance, which also includes the Jollibee Group Foundation and the Tanoto Foundation.
The report quotes Stacy Choong, a partner at the international law firm Withersworldwide, who counsels clients on their philanthropic endeavours. “People want the assurance that their trusts and foundations will be managed responsibly and effectively once they are no longer around,” she said.
In 2019, there were only 200 single-family offices; now, there are over 2,000, according to CNBC. It says that “the government aims to build on this momentum by encouraging more family offices to channel their regional and global philanthropic efforts through Singapore”.
The report pointed out that charitable endeavours by family offices have begun to expand throughout Asia and Africa.
“What has shifted in the last couple of years is that the Singapore government is driving to become Asia’s philanthropic hub,” CNBC quotes Anthonia Hui as saying. Hui, a philanthropist who moved from Hong Kong to Singapore in 2000, says more family offices are relocating to the city-state due to government incentives.
In mid-2023, the city-state’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, began to encourage philanthropists to make Singapore their base for overseas giving, offering a 100 per cent tax deduction for these donations for five years, capped at 40 per cent of the donor’s statutory income. /TISG
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