Singaporean and Hong Kong investors have differing views on what they want from the strategies offered by investment firms.
Quilter International research has found that 55% of Singapore’s high net worth investors (HNWs) are more concerned with wealth creation than preservation.
But this contrasts with Hong Kong’s high net worth investors where 69% of respondents said they were more concerned with wealth preservation.
Asset classes
The research also revealed the typical investment portfolio of Singapore’s high net worth investors (HNWs) and the majority favour traditional asset classes such as stocks.
Beside cash, Singapore HNWs predominantly hold stocks (95%); fixed income assets (86%) and real estate (77%).
Hong Kong HNWs have very similar investment portfolios to their Singaporean counterparts when it comes to traditional asset classes.
But, when you compare there are some significant difference, as Singapore HNW investors are more likely to invest in private equity (70%) compared to just under half (49%) in Hong Kong.
Singapore HNW investors are twice as likely to hold commodities such as gold and precious metal, with 63% including these investments within their portfolio compared to just 31% of Hong Kong-based HNWs.
HNWs in Singapore also show a degree of regional-bias in their investments and around half of all asset classes are invested in Asia.
Reasons
Ian Kloss, Singapore chief executive of Quilter International, said: “It is interesting to see how the investment strategies differ among Singapore high net worth individuals compared to those in Hong Kong.
“One of the most striking observations is that Singaporean HNW investors are more likely to favour having a wealth creation strategy opposed to concentrating on wealth preservation.
“Some of the reasons for this include that Singapore has more policies and infrastructures to encourage entrepreneurship and the research shows that almost three times as many Singapore HNWs run their own business’.
“Other reasons include that the average age of the population of HNW investors in Singapore is younger than in Hong Kong, which means they are more likely to take aggressive investment strategies with the goal of creating wealth for years to come.
“Finally, Singapore enjoys an environment which also helps support wealth creation strategies.”
