2024 FBS Summit: Hong Kong confab of family businesses talk about AI, geopolitics, markets More than 100 of the world’s wealthiest business owners gathered in Hong Kong this weekend, as the city stepped up its appeal to be the Asia-Pacific region’s wealth management and family office hub. Business owners from the US, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and mainland China joined their Hong Kong counterparts at the principals-only 2024 Family Business Summit, organised by South China Morning Post and Blue Pool Capital with JPMorgan as the presenting partner. “Family businesses form the backbone of Asia’s economy, and are a major growth driver for this region,” said the Post’s CEO Catherine So at the Island Shangri-La Hotel. “As a global news organisation reaching an affluent audience of 35 million monthly … we feel it is incumbent upon us to provide an exclusive forum for prominent family business owners to engage and exchange insights with one another to ensure the sustainable success of these multigenerational empires.” The first day of the conference was packed with discussion panels featuring some of the top experts in various fields, from artificial intelligence to the South China Sea. Former US ambassador to China Max Baucus commenced the programme with a discussion about geopolitics with the Shanghai Institute for International Studies’ Chairman Yang Jiemian and Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations. Donald Trump’s second term in the White House may unleash a “Trump-tsunami” of policies, Baucus said. These are Trump’s campaign promises to deport illegal immigrants, slap tariffs on China, remake the US government and make recess appointments. Tariffs will almost certainly spill over to American consumers and cause US inflation to accelerate, said two top economic advisers to the Chinese government. Still, disruptions to the status quo provide opportunities for long-term investors who deploy patient capital, similar to family businesses and legacy wealth, conference attendees said. The Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific were the subjects of attention in a panel comprising the renowned South China Sea expert Wu Shicun, the Eurasia Group’s managing director Rick Waters, and Tsinghua University’s senior fellow Senior Colonel Zhou Bo. The potential for all-out war is low in the Taiwan Strait, although low-level conflagrations and altercations may occur around the South China Sea, experts said. Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po spoke about Hong Kong’s competitiveness as a financial centre during a fireside chat with the Post’s editor-in-chief Tammy Tam. Hong Kong’s pledge to entice family offices to set up operations in the city has seen growing interest. The number of Asia-Pacific single-family offices is expected to surge by 40 per cent to 3,200 by 2030, outpacing all regions globally, according to a report by Deloitte published last week. Hong Kong alone is home to more than 2,700 single-family offices, with more than half of them founded by individuals whose wealth exceeds US$50 million. Christopher Hui Ching-you, the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, delivered welcome remarks during lunch. Bob Prince, the co-chief investment officer of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, and JPMorgan Chase’s president Daniel Pinto spoke in a fireside chat over lunch, moderated by EQT Asia’s chairperson Jean Eric Salata. The afternoon session kicked off with a discussion about AI featuring Alibaba Cloud’s chief technology officer Zhou Jingren. AI may balloon into a US$1.4 trillion industry by 2030, according to an estimate by China International Capital Corporation. On this, Hong Kong has a strong role to play, with five of the city’s six universities ranked among the world’s top 50 institutions for data science and AI, led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in the global 10th position. More than 237,000 companies related to AI launched in China in the first half of this year, according to a search on corporate data platform Qichacha. The country has around 1.7 million companies registered with AI in their name, patent portfolio or scope of business. https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3286868/2024-fbs-summit-hong-kong-confab-family-businesses-talk-about-ai-geopolitics-markets?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article (ICE HONG KONG)

Fonte notizia: South China Morning Post