It’s Destination Singapore for a number of family offices facing India’s outward remittance ceiling, prompting them to form entities in the wealthy city state to gain greater access to global investment opportunities.
India’s Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) framework allows resident Indians to transfer up to $250,000 per financial year abroad for permissible capital and current account transactions, an amount too meagre for family offices looking to deploy millions.
“The LRS is designed for individuals, but family offices are increasingly becoming institutional in the way they invest. As the cheque sizes get larger and they move towards co-investments and direct investments, they need structures that allow them to deploy capital globally at a much larger scale,” said Anas Rahman Junaid, founder and chief researcher at Hurun India, a research firm focusing on wealth creation, startups, philanthropy and family businesses.
Family offices can use multiple routes to invest overseas, including setting up branches in offshore financial hubs and investing across global public and private markets, international deals, co-investment platforms, alternatives and multi-currency portfolios.
Baldota Family Office evaluated GIFT City, Dubai and Singapore before deciding to set up an offshore entity in Singapore. The Baldota Group is a mining and metals conglomerate in Karnataka.
Other large family offices including Premji Invest, Munjal Family Office, Patni Family Office and Kothari Family Office have set up or are exploring Singapore entities as investments in technologically advanced sectors overseas become a growing area of interest, at least three people aware of the development told Mint.
Premji Invest is the investment arm of the Premji family, founded by Wipro’s Azim Premji, and manages over $18 billion. The Munjal Family Office belongs to the founders of the Hero Group, the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer.
The Patni Family Office is of the Patni brothers, pioneers of India’s early IT-services industry through Patni Computer Systems. The Kothari Family Office belongs to Hemendra Kothari, former chairman of the DSP Group, one of the most prominent financial-services groups in India.
India wealth goes global
“Structurally, if India wants to say that it has arrived as a global economy, we have to get much better at allowing capital to move in and out of the country,” said Nitesh Aggarwal, chief investment officer for Baldota Family Office. “Indian wealth is becoming much more global, and people will naturally want to diversify some of their wealth outside India. Over time, we need to make that process much easier and more seamless.”
Premji Invest declined to comment on its plans. Queries sent to other family offices did not elicit a response.
Thermax Family Office, which manages the wealth of the Aga and Pudumjee families, promoters of the Thermax Group, predominantly invests in global public markets and also has a relatively smaller private market exposure. It has established a Singapore set-up to invest globally.
“Apart from geographical diversification, a global office helps us access some of the products and strategies that are not available in India, especially hedge funds. There are plenty of strategies that we can access with this global exposure and effectively manage risk in the portfolio,” said Amol Sathe, chief investment officer of Thermax Family Office.
Tax incentives too are one of the factors that drive family offices to explore regulatorily stable jurisdictions such as Singapore, Sathe added.
Indian family offices are becoming larger and more institutional in the way they invest. According to the Julius Baer-EY Indian Family Office Playbook published in August, mid- and large-sized Indian family offices managed about ₹70,000 crore ($7.33 billion) in assets as of 2024, with assets projected to grow at a 14% CAGR over three years.
The report said family offices have evolved from primarily preserving wealth to investing across startups, infrastructure, private credit, alternatives and global markets. The LRS, introduced in 2004, allows individuals, including minors, to freely remit up to $250,000 per financial year
Why Singapore
Globalization of families and wealth is driving demand for sophisticated cross-border planning, including offshore holding structures, the Julius Baer-EY report said. It added that offshore family offices in Singapore, the UAE and other hubs provide deeper access to global markets and greater regulatory flexibility.
“Singapore and UAE are both more natural jurisdictions for this because they already have a deep ecosystem of family offices and investment managers and it provides a platform for deploying capital globally,” Junaid of Hurun India told Mint.
Singapore has also built a sizable family-office ecosystem. The number of single-family offices in the city-state crossed 2,000 by end-2024, up 43% from 1,400 in 2023, according to the report.
The report described Singapore as a “gateway for regional investment” connected to global markets, with a professional ecosystem spanning wealth management, trust structures and succession planning.
For some Indian families, the attraction is also access to investments that may be difficult to pursue from India.
“Whether they are sophisticated combinations of underlying stocks or indices that are used to create fixed coupon notes or unique ideas like life settlement funds, some things can only be explored if you have money sitting outside India,” said an investment officer at a large family office, requesting anonymity.
Aggarwal added that in the current environment, with the fluid geopolitical situation and fluctuating oil prices, it is understandable that there is some concern around forex outflows, especially when it puts pressure on reserves.
More complex structures
The need for offshore structures is becoming more pronounced as family offices move beyond conventional portfolio investments.
“For some larger families, the overseas allocation can be upwards of $30 million. At that level, you are looking beyond an individual remittance; you need to think about the appropriate structure for the family’s investments,” said Sreedhar KV, chief financial officer, Entrust Family Office.
There are also families where some or all of the next generation is based overseas.
“In some cases, family offices consider a FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act)-compliant offshore structure also when it already has some members of the family as overseas residents,” said Sreedhar.
Junaid also said that the shift will largely be led by firms earning in foreign currency overseas. “With capital already parked outside India, they can invest straight from the offshore entity rather than routing money home and back out again,” he added.