Goldman Sachs released its latest family office survey this week showing 39% of respondents plan to increase allocations to both public and private equity over the next twelve months. The figure marks a reversal from 2023 and 2024, when the cohort averaged net reductions in risk assets and parked record sums in money markets and short-duration credit.
The survey polled family offices managing a combined $4.1 trillion in assets under advisement, with median office size near $800 million. Equity appetite rose across both listed and private formats, the first time since 2021 that both categories showed simultaneous intent to increase. Cash allocations, which had climbed to 18% of portfolios by mid-2024, are now projected to decline to 12% by year-end 2025 as offices redeploy into risk assets. Hedge fund allocations held steady at 22%, unchanged from the prior year.
The shift reflects three converging factors. First, real yields on cash have compressed 140 basis points since October as central banks telegraph easing cycles. Second, private equity distribution volumes fell 38% year-over-year in 2024, forcing offices to either re-up existing commitments or accept shrinking exposure. Third, public equity multiples in technology and industrials have pulled back 11% from their June peaks, creating entry points for long-horizon capital that sat out the 2023 rally. Family offices are not buying momentum; they are buying the gap between current price and five-year intrinsic value.
The allocator class most sensitive to this survey is the $500 million to $2 billion single-family office segment, which operates without institutional governance layers and moves faster than endowments or pensions. These offices wrote $87 billion in private equity commitments in 2023, a figure that dropped to $62 billion in 2024 as they waited for valuation clarity. If 39% of the surveyed cohort follows through, that implies $34 billion in incremental equity deployment over the next eighteen months, split roughly 60/40 between private and public markets based on historical preference data.
Operators should watch three follow-on signals. First, whether family office direct co-investment activity rises above $22 billion in Q1 2025, the threshold that would confirm deployment intent beyond survey rhetoric. Second, if hedge fund allocations begin to decline by mid-year as offices rotate into cheaper beta. Third, whether real estate allocations, currently at 16%, continue to fall as offices liquidate non-core property holdings to fund equity moves. Goldman's next quarterly positioning update in April will clarify whether stated intent translates to actual capital movement.
The survey did not disclose regional breakdowns, but prior Goldman family office research shows 62% of respondents are U.S.-domiciled, 23% European, and 15% Asia-Pacific. The equity tilt is therefore a dollar-denominated signal first.