Alea Global Group’s next event is our annual European Family Office Investment Summit, a well-established event that attracts family office investors and investment opportunities alike.
Europe enters 2026 as one of the world’s most compelling investment destinations, more so than it has been for several years. After a difficult period marked by energy shocks, elevated inflation, and geopolitical turbulence, the continent has stabilised. Recession fears have receded, inflation is close to central bank targets, and fiscal packages are beginning to filter through to the real economy.
The European Commission’s Autumn 2025 Economic Forecast projected real GDP in the EU to grow by 1.4% in 2026 and 1.5% in 2027, though the ECB’s more recent March 2026 projections have revised the euro area outlook downward to 0.9% for 2026, reflecting geopolitical headwinds from the Middle East conflict.
The data cited in this article draws on the major 2025 family office surveys from Goldman Sachs, UBS, and BlackRock, which cover global samples. Where European-specific data is available it is noted; where global figures are used, they are presented as indicative of broader trends in which European offices participate, rather than as European-specific findings.
What follows is a picture of where European family offices are directing capital, and why.
Key Allocation Themes for European Family Offices
1. Private Markets: Private Equity, Credit, and Direct Deals
Private markets remain the dominant allocation theme for European family offices, accounting for the majority of their alternatives exposure. According to the UBS Global Family Office Report 2025, which surveyed 317 family offices globally, European family offices allocate on average 49% to alternatives, led by private equity at 27% and real estate at 11%, though allocations vary significantly across offices depending on size, geography, and investment philosophy.
The shift toward direct deals and co-investment is accelerating. Across family offices globally, 72% now invest in secondaries, up from 60% in 2023, according to Goldman Sachs’ 2025 Family Office Investment Insights report, with European offices increasingly active in the strategy, using secondary purchases to access mature portfolios at a discount without the J-curve of primary commitments.
Private credit has moved from a niche position to a core allocation. The trend is clear across major surveys: European families favour senior direct lending, consistent with their generally more conservative approach compared to their American peers. According to Goldman Sachs’ 2025 report, nearly one-third of family offices globally intend to increase allocations to private credit in 2025 to 2026, the highest figure for any alternative asset class.
2. Defence and Strategic Technology
Europe’s historic rearmament cycle has opened an investment theme that would have seemed unlikely even three years ago. As NATO commitments, the war in Ukraine, and the imperative of strategic sovereignty have driven continent-wide increases in defence budgets, family offices are increasingly taking note and taking positions.
The relationship between defence and ESG frameworks is evolving. Pressure from member states and the broader rearmament context has prompted the EU to revisit how defence sits within sustainable finance discussions, and some institutions have begun to adjust their exclusion policies accordingly. However, defence remains a contested area across ESG frameworks, with no universal reclassification, and family offices with formal sustainability mandates will need to assess compatibility on a case-by-case basis
The opportunity extends well beyond primary defence contractors into advanced materials, cybersecurity, dual-use technologies, and the supply chains that serve them, areas that sit comfortably within the broader deep tech and industrial investment appetite of European families.
3. Digital Infrastructure, AI, and Technology
Technology remains the most overweighted sector across family office portfolios globally, and European offices are no exception. According to Goldman Sachs’ 2025 Family Office Investment Insights report, 58% of family offices globally expect their portfolios to be overweight technology in the next 12 months, and 86% have some exposure to AI, though the majority of that exposure is through public equities rather than direct investment, and many respondents noted valuation concerns at current levels.
For European family offices specifically, the opportunity is increasingly being expressed through private markets rather than public equities, backing AI infrastructure, data centre development, cybersecurity, fintech, and deep tech ventures across the continent’s leading innovation hubs in London, Berlin, Stockholm, and Paris. Family offices are treating digital assets as two distinct categories: cautious, tightly risk-managed exposure to core digital assets and infrastructure alongside venture-style investments in the wider blockchain ecosystem.
4. Real Estate and Infrastructure
Real estate remains a core allocation for European family offices, and appetite is recovering after the interest rate-driven contraction of 2022 to 2023. According to the UBS Global Family Office Report 2025, real estate accounts for around 11% of European family office portfolios on average, though individual offices vary considerably. European families are deploying capital into logistics, life sciences real estate, and residential opportunities with inflation-indexed rent structures.
Infrastructure is gaining significant momentum. According to BlackRock’s 2025 Global Family Office Survey, three-quarters of family offices globally feel positive about infrastructure’s prospects, attracted by its ability to generate stable cash flows, its role as a portfolio diversifier, and its perceived resilience in volatile environments. 19% of European family offices plan to increase infrastructure allocations, reflecting interest in energy transition and digital infrastructure themes. The living sectors, including purpose-built residential, student accommodation, and co-living, are attracting particular attention given acute structural housing shortages across the continent.
5. Sustainability, Impact, and the Energy Transition
European family offices are moving toward a more rigorous, outcomes-focused approach to sustainable and impact investing, driven both by conviction and by the next generation assuming greater influence over investment decisions. In 76% of UK family offices, conversations about sustainability and nature-based investing are typically driven by a family member, and a quarter of family offices globally are looking at how to align the family around its approach to sustainability through family charters or impact investing policies, according to UBS’s Global Family Office Report 2025.
In 2026, family offices are expected to move beyond compliance towards transition-focused strategies, backing renewable energy and green infrastructure while treating climate risk as an essential consideration when analysing a GP’s portfolio. Clean energy, circular economy ventures, agri-tech, and climate technology are emerging as preferred expressions of impact capital, sectors where financial returns and genuine environmental outcomes can be demonstrated in tandem.
What Shapes European Family Office Decision-Making
A Conservative but Active Stance
European family offices are generally characterised by a measured approach to risk, with higher cash balances than many of their global peers reflecting a preference for strategic optionality over immediate deployment, a pattern consistent across the major 2025 surveys. This is increasingly understood as dry powder rather than defensiveness, with capital being preserved for the right moments in private credit and infrastructure
The Generational Transition
One of the most consequential forces reshaping European family office investment behaviour is not a market shift but a demographic one. Younger family members are reshaping governance and investment philosophy through a stronger emphasis on ESG, social impact, and philanthropy, shifting the centre of gravity of many portfolios meaningfully.
Governance and Professionalisation
Governance is becoming more structured and underpinned by modernised platforms and processes. Many family offices are formalising constitutions, decision frameworks, and next-generation pathways to reduce friction across generations and clarify succession. This professionalisation is also driving demand for specialist external partners, particularly across alternatives, digital assets, and ESG reporting, as offices seek institutional-grade capability without inflating internal headcount.
Geopolitical Risk as a Portfolio Consideration
According to Goldman Sachs’ 2025 Family Office Investment Insights report, 61% of family offices globally cite geopolitical conflict as their greatest investment risk, followed by political instability at 39% and economic recession at 38%. For European family offices in particular, this is translating into greater geographic diversification, increased allocations to hard assets and gold, and a more active approach to tail risk management, themes that will continue to define portfolio construction through the rest of the decade.
Challenges to Navigate
Regulatory complexity is a persistent feature of the European landscape, spanning GDPR, the AI Act, SFDR sustainability reporting requirements, and evolving environmental standards. Understanding the specific regulatory environment for each sector and jurisdiction is not optional: it is a precondition for effective deployment.
A McKinsey Global Institute analysis found that over the past five years, the largest US technology companies invested approximately €2 trillion more in digital technologies than their European counterparts, based on the capex and R&D of the 150 largest tech firms on each side of the Atlantic. The gap reflects the structural absence of hyperscale technology companies in Europe rather than a broad economy-wide shortfall, but its implications for where AI and digital infrastructure leadership will concentrate are significant nonetheless.
And the generational transition, while an opportunity, also brings complexity. Aligning investment philosophy across generations, formalising governance, and managing the emotional dimensions of succession planning are challenges that require as much care and expertise as any portfolio decision
Europe presents a dynamic and improving investment landscape, with particularly strong structural tailwinds in private markets, defence, digital infrastructure, real estate, and the energy transition. The combination of a maturing private credit market, an accelerating direct deals culture, a generational shift in values, and a continent-wide rearmament and digital build-out creates a genuinely multi-dimensional opportunity set for European family offices navigating the decade ahead.
By attending our next summit you can network with potential partners in the region and find out everything you need to know to expertly navigate these opportunities.
Find out more at europefosummit.com