The number of family offices with private market exposure that Preqin tracks has climbed 524% since 2016, a figure cited in IQ-EQ’s 2026 family office outlook. That single statistic captures partially the operating model JP Conte runs at Lupine Crest Capital. Five 2026 predictions help explain this: private market dominance, governance professionalization, talent specialization, digital asset maturity, and a generational rewrite of sector priorities.
Private Markets Stay at the Center, but Structures Change
Private equity, venture capital, and real assets will remain the load-bearing wall of family office portfolios this year. IQ-EQ projects single-family-office allocations to private equity and venture capital between 10% and 25%, with multi-family offices running 5% to 20%. The composition of those allocations is what’s shifting. Citi’s 2025 Global Family Office Report, summarized at the November 2025 Family Wealth Report investment summit, found that 70% of family offices now engage in some form of direct investing.
Continuation vehicles, secondary transactions, and co-investment rights have given offices more exit flexibility than the 2-and-20 fund structure ever offered. BNY’s 2025 Investment Insights for Single Family Offices, cited in the same panel write-up, reported a 52% year-over-year jump in family offices identifying alignment of interests as a material factor in manager selection. JP Conte’s discipline at Lupine Crest fits that pattern. The firm targets companies across healthcare, financial services, software, and industrial technology. Concentration on four operating sectors, rather than the broad alternative allocation common to multi-asset family offices, gives JP Conte’s firm the kind of pattern recognition that direct investing rewards.
The patient-capital advantage matters because dealmaking calendars are no longer convenient. PwC’s 2026 global private equity outlook notes that megadeals are returning to the market alongside more disciplined valuations and longer hold periods.
Governance and Outsourced Talent Get Professionalized
The second 2026 prediction is harder to quantify but easier to feel. Family offices are formalizing decision frameworks, family constitutions, and next-generation pathways at a pace that didn’t exist five years ago. Lex van Dam, founder of the SFO Alliance, told IQ-EQ, “when markets are more challenging and returns or liquidity fall short, it’s logical for family offices to tighten governance to avoid repeating the same outcomes.”
The cause is partly operational drag. Fragmented legacy systems are being replaced by unified reporting platforms that deliver real-time portfolio visibility, automated reconciliation, and consistent ESG metrics. Outsourcing is doing similar work on the talent side. With digital assets, cross-border structures, and tighter compliance regimes piling onto portfolios, leaner internal teams are leaning on outsourced CFO, middle-office, and compliance partners. The Family Wealth Report panel was blunt about why: only half of family offices making direct private investments employ private equity professionals trained to source and structure deals, and just 20% take board seats on the companies they back. Club deals now account for 60% of direct investment volume according to PwC analysis cited at the same panel. Families are pooling expertise on purpose.
Geography is pushing the same way. The 2025 Henley Private Wealth Migration Report, referenced by IQ-EQ, forecast a net loss of around 16,500 millionaires from the United Kingdom in 2025 alone, and much of that wealth has relocated to Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s family office free zones. Families holding capital across multiple jurisdictions can’t run a discretionary operation on email chains and quarterly committee meetings.
Digital Assets and the Next Generation Rewire Allocation
Family offices are now treating crypto as two separate asset classes: tightly risk-managed exposure to core protocols and infrastructure, paired with venture-style positions in the broader blockchain stack. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 clarified the SEC and CFTC’s overlapping jurisdiction. That reduced the regulatory ambiguity that had kept many institutional pools on the sidelines. Singapore and the United Arab Emirates have moved on parallel tracks. Both have built licensing-led regimes that family offices can underwrite against. Asia, where 40% of family offices were established within the last 15 years according to IQ-EQ’s survey work with Barton Consulting, now accounts for roughly 30% of single-family offices globally and 26% of multi-family offices. A balance like that means digital asset frameworks built in Singapore matter as much to North American allocators as those built in New York.
Generational turnover is the other driver. Bank of America research cited in the Family Wealth Report panel found that 73% of next-generation family members are expected to change their family office’s investment approach, with stronger weightings to artificial intelligence, sustainable infrastructure, and growth-stage technology. Deal data shows the same preference. AI and machine-learning deal values more than doubled between 2024 and 2026, according to PwC’s 2026 private equity outlook, with more than 20% of $5 billion-plus megadeals tied to AI themes. S&P Global Market Intelligence reported in February 2025 that private debt firms financed 77% of global buyouts in 2024, their highest share in the past 10 years, an environment in which family offices with patient capital and no fund-stage clock face fewer of the financing constraints that limit traditional sponsors.
Bastiat Partners and Kharis Capital, referenced in the Family Wealth Report panel, project that 50% of family offices plan to execute direct deals through independent sponsors over the next two years. The work is sourcing middle-market deals, holding for value creation rather than fund-stage exits, and pairing a lean internal team with operating partners. JP Conte’s family office, Lupine Crest, is built around disciplined sector focus, patient capital, and expertise and is the structure other family offices spent 2025 building toward. It’s the structure Stuart Pinnington and his counterparts expect to keep gaining share through 2026.
Learn more about JP Conte and Lupine Crest Capital here.
