World’s 9th richest tycoon Google’s Sergey Brin sets up family office in Singapore

Singapore— Singapore has lured another billionaire, with Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s family office opening a branch on the island to manage his wealth.

Mr Brin founded Google with Larry Page in 1998 and has a net worth of of US$86.5 billion (S$115 billion), making him the world’s ninth richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

He is the latest tycoon lured by Singapore’s low taxes, high security and generous incentives for family offices, which manage the lives and wealth of the super-rich.

The list of billionaires who have relocated to Singapore includes Mr Eduardo Saverin, one of the co-founders of social media giant Facebook.

Mr Saverin moved to Singapore in 2009 and renounced his American citizenship two years later, avoiding an estimated S$932 million (US$700 million) in capital gains taxes in the US.

UK inventor Sir James Dyson’s company, Weybourne Group Ltd., also set up a family office in 2019, the same year Mr Dyson paid a whopping S$78 million on one unit at the top of the tallest building in Singapore, Guoco Tower.

Mr Dyson’s net worth is estimated at S$29.4 billion (£16.2 billion).

Hedge fund billionaire Roy Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, is also opening a family office in Singapore, Bloomberg reported in November last year.

Mr Brin’s California-based family office Bayshore Global Management established a branch in Singapore late last year, documents filed with regulators show.

The director of Mr Brin’s Singapore unit is deputy chief investment officer Ms Marie Young.

According to BBC News, Mr Brin, with Google co-founder Larry Page, visited Singapore in 2016. At present, neither of the men are actively managing the search engine company, with Mr Sundar Pichai serving as chief executive officer since 2015.

Mr Brin was also president of Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc, until he stepped down in December 2019.

However, Messrs Brin and Page still posses super-voting shares that give them control of Google.

Government figures show that there are around 200 single-family offices in Singapore that manage over S$26 billion in assets.

The 47-year-old Mr Brin was born in Moscow, in what was then the Soviet Union, but moved to the US with his family at the age of six. He is a US citizen.

He has been married to Nicole Shanahan, a legal tech founder, since 2018, and has three children, a daughter with Ms Shanahan and a son and another daughter with his former wife, biotech analyst and entrepreneur Anne Wojcicki.

/TISG

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