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Family offices flock to private markets with allocations surging over 500% in nearly a decade
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A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
As the world’s rich have gotten richer, their investment firms have doubled down on private assets such as direct lending and data centers.
The number of family offices with allocations to private markets has surged by 524% since 2016, rising from 651 to 4,067, per Preqin data. This increase surpasses that of wealth management firms (410%) and endowments and foundations (81%) with allocations to private markets, according to the alternative investment data platform owned by BlackRock.
This growth has been marked in recent years, surging nearly 21% in 2023 and about 26% in 2024. In the first half of 2025, the number of family offices with private markets exposure increased by 8%.
Armando Senra, who leads BlackRock’s institutional business in the Americas, said family office activity reflects broader interest in private credit and infrastructure from investors. A BlackRock survey conducted this past spring reported that nearly a third of single-family offices planned to invest more in private credit and infrastructure from 2025 through 2026.
PwC’s Jonathan Flack told CNBC via email that much of this activity can be attributed to family offices having far more wealth to manage. By Deloitte’s estimate, family offices managed a combined $3.1 trillion in 2024, up 63% from 2019.
Family offices have less need for quick cash, so they can afford to make illiquid private investments, Flack said. With family offices known to invest for decades or even generations, private markets appeal to their long-term mindset, according to Flack, the leader of the consulting giant’s U.S. and global family office practice.
“Private markets allow the families to invest longer term in a more stable growth environment as compared to the public markets which have proven to be more volatile over the same period,” he said.
But family offices have become increasingly selective about private offerings. A May survey by UBS found that family offices planned to increase their private debt holdings but trim their private equity bets in favor of developed market equities in 2025. For U.S. family offices, the expected drawdown was especially steep.
That said, when asked about their five-year plans, more family offices intended to increase rather than decrease their allocations to private equity and other private assets.
The Netflix logo is seen on an office building in Los Angeles, California, on Feb. 5, 2026.
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Netflix kicks off earnings season for media companies on Thursday with a quarterly report that Wall Street hopes will give more updates on the company’s path forward after walking away from its proposed deal for Warner Bros. Discovery.
Here’s how Netflix is expected to perform when it reports results for the first quarter of 2026, according to estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: 76 cents estimated
- Revenue: $12.18 billion estimated
Last quarter Netflix’s management focused much of its earnings call with investors on its interest in WBD’s streaming and film assets, as well as progress in its advertising business.
Just weeks after the January earnings update, however, Netflix dropped its pursuit for WBD after Paramount Skydance put forth a superior offer for the entirety of WBD.
“Heading into earnings, Netflix finds itself in a very different spot than many expected just a month and a half ago. We were supposed to be talking about the company’s progress toward closing the Warner Bros. deal,” said Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at Forrester. “Instead, the question now is how Netflix competes in a streaming market that’s likely to get more crowded at the top.”
While Netflix’s stock has made considerable gains since walking away from its WBD deal — a more than 25% rally — it has raised questions about the path forward for the streaming giant.
In withdrawing from the acquisition of WBD, Netflix “avoided a substantial increase in debt, extensive regulatory scrutiny, and a long, complex integration process,” according to a Deutsche Bank research note on Monday.
The note added this will allow Wall Street to return its focus to Netflix’s engagement, pricing and advertising.
Outside of the WBD deal and Netflix’s potential aspirations in the broader media landscape, Wall Street’s attention has most often been on the advertising business, which has made considerable gains since launching in late 2022.
In January, Netflix management said the cheaper, ad-supported option was hitting its stride after being “slower out of the gate” in its early years on the market. Netflix reported more than $1.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2025, or about 3% of its total full-year revenue — which it expects to double this year.
For years, Wall Street was focused on subscriber growth for streaming platforms. However, since Netflix reported its first subscriber loss in 10 years in 2022, investors have shifted their focus to profitability. In response, media companies are focusing less on reporting subscriber numbers and more on other business initiatives, such as advertising and pricing increases.
Netflix once again hiked prices in late March, which analysts expect will add to overall 2026 revenue growth. The company did provide a subscriber update in January, when it said it had reached 325 million global paid customers, a new milestone since it had last reported membership numbers the year prior.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
Royal Mail is poised to scrap Saturday second-class letter deliveries across the UK by December, having reached an agreement with the staff trade union on the nationwide implementation of the changes.
This significant overhaul, which will see second-class post no longer delivered on Saturdays and the service adjusted to every other weekday, brings an end to a lengthy dispute with unions. The reforms will initially extend to 240 delivery offices as part of a wider trial, before being fully implemented across the entire 1,200-strong UK network by the end of the year.
The deal struck with the Communications Workers Union (CWU) includes a 4.75% pay rise for staff, alongside improved terms for those who joined Royal Mail on or after 1 December 2022. Employees on legacy contracts will receive a 3% salary increase. Additionally, Royal Mail has agreed that new starters will be offered contracts based on standard 37-hour working weeks, and around 6,000 part-time postal workers will have the option to increase their average weekly hours as part of the changes.
CWU members are now set to be consulted on the agreement.
Alistair Cochrane, chief executive of Royal Mail, said: “This agreement with the CWU paves the way for Universal Service reform rollout and represents a significant investment in our people.
“Moving ahead with reform will make a real difference to Royal Mail’s quality of service, supporting the delivery of a reliable, efficient and financially sustainable postal service for our customers across the UK.”
Regulator Ofcom last year gave the green light to Royal Mail’s plans to scale back second class letter deliveries, starting from July 28.
It launched the changes across 35 delivery offices as a pilot, but has yet to expand this nationwide due to a disagreement with the union.
It kicked off intensive talks with the CWU at the beginning of February to resolve the dispute.
Under the Universal Service Obligation, Royal Mail must keep Monday to Saturday deliveries for first class post and maintain the target for second class letters to arrive within three working days.
The group has argued the changes to second class deliveries are crucial to helping it maintain the letter delivery service and ensure it is sustainable for the future.
It comes as Royal Mail has continued to fail to meet delivery targets set by Ofcom and amid MP concerns over practices in the postal service and worries that parcels are being prioritised over letters.
In a cross-party Commons committee session last month, the CWU told MPs the postal service had become “chaotic” with Royal Mail workers being told to leave doctors’ and hospital letters on racks to prioritise parcels.
Royal Mail’s owner Daniel Kretinsky, who was also giving evidence to the committee, insisted there was no “management decision” for parcels to be prioritised over letters and argued the service cannot be fixed until plans for reform of the USO are put in place.
On the agreement with Royal Mail, the CWU said in a statement to its members: “It is now imperative that all branches, representatives and members have the opportunity and time to fully consider this agreement properly, not only on the basis of how we have moved the company significantly on all the key issues, but also in its wider context around why USO reform is necessary and why we must shift our focus to changing the role of Ofcom and create a level playing field with our competitors.
“Delivering change will always be difficult but we are clearly in a stronger position to support our members under the terms of this agreement.”
The UK could face some food shortages by the summer under a worst case scenario drawn up by government officials.
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