DBS Multi-Family Office "Foundry" Structure Passes Over S$1 Billion AuM Mark

Tom Burroughes

24 September 2025

DBS Private Bank, part of , has announced that a variable capital company (VCC) single-family office structure aimed at ultra-wealthy families has reached S$1 billion ($779 million) in AuM two years after it was launched.

The DBS Multi Family Office Foundry VCC is, the bank has said, the world’s first bank-backed multi-family office that uses Singapore’s VCC structure. The offering gives an alternative option for families to manage their wealth in Singapore without having to establish their own single-family office. Through DBS MFO, clients can get access services from investment management, trade execution, to custody solutions – via a single integrated platform.

The move comes as Singapore and rival financial centres such as Hong Kong are battling to be pre-eminent locations for family offices. There were more than 2,000 single-family offices (SFOs) in Singapore in early January this year (source: Business Times (of Singapore) 14 January 2025).

DBS’s VCC structure is set up as a “plug-and-play” offering, where DBS will set up the sub-fund (which automatically benefits from the VCC’s tax incentive award) and manage ongoing regulatory reporting requirements on a client’s behalf. This contrasts with other options that require families to set up their own fund entities and apply separately for tax incentives. Clients need to invest S$15 million to qualify for the DBS MFO.

“While the traditional SFO model still appeals to many, we anticipated very early on that there would be growing demand for cost-efficient yet institutionally supported solutions. That was the thinking behind our DBS MFO, which we launched back in 2023 as a market-first, and today, the response has exceeded expectations,” Lee Woon Shiu, group head of wealth planning, family office and insurance solutions, DBS Private Bank, said.

Since it was launched in June 2023, the DBS MFO has onboarded more than 25 ultra-high net worth families around the world. “These include families who were originally considering setting up their own single-family office, but were won over by cost optimisation, manpower benefits and the ease of administration which the DBS MFO offers,” the bank said.

DBS said the VCC offering does not impose pre-determined investment philosophies nor are clients required to invest in DBS products. DBS manages and holds the capital.

“Our wealth and institutional businesses at DBS are well integrated, and when combined with our strong track record of collaboration for the benefit of our clients, they create a differentiated wealth proposition – what we call our ‘One Bank’ model,” Lee Woon Shiu said. “For instance, we leverage the structuring capabilities of our Global Financial Markets team to design bespoke solutions for DBS MFO clients with specific investment mandates. One of our clients was able to gain exposure to a sub-fund portfolio through a total return swap transaction, a solution typically reserved for institutional investors.”

The Singapore-listed bank said it banks more than one-third of the SFOs in Singapore; its family office assets under management have more than doubled in the last two years (DBD did not give a specific figure in its statement yesterday).

“Client interest in succession planning and wealth preservation has intensified, and we are currently in talks with more than 15 prospects who see the DBS MFO as an attractive solution. With this in mind, we are on track to double our AuM to S$2 billion by end-2026, achieving in just over half the time what it took to reach our first billion,” Lee said.