Two in three of the world’s richest family offices have no succession plan. In Nigeria, the gap is wider.

A family office is a private company set up by a wealthy family to manage its affairs: investments, property, taxes, charity and the family’s own arrangements. The largest manage billions of dollars. Their purpose is to make wealth outlast the person who made it. A new survey suggests many are not ready for that moment.

What did the survey find?

UBS, the Swiss bank, surveyed 307 family offices in more than 30 markets between January and March 2026, publishing the results in May.[1] The families behind them had an average net worth of $2.7 billion, and $627.4 billion between them.[1]

Only 35% had a defined succession plan for the family office itself,[1] which leaves about two in three without one (derived). Only 27% had a structured process to prepare the next generation, and 29% said a lack of financial or governance education was a challenge in bringing heirs into decisions.[1] Fewer than half had formal governance frameworks with oversight at board level.[1]

These offices are not disorganised. 68% measure their investment performance formally and 60% run investment committees.[1] They are good at managing money and weaker at managing its handover.

UBS Global Family Office Report 2026, 307 family offices. Source 1.

How does Nigeria compare?

On the evidence available, worse. In PwC’s Nigeria Family Business Survey, based on interviews in late 2020, only 25% of Nigerian family businesses said they had a robust, documented and communicated succession plan, against 30% globally.[2] Only 9% had a family constitution, a written agreement on how the family relates to the business, against 28% globally.[2] Half had no governance policies at all, against 21% globally, and only 15% had an agreed way to settle family disputes.[2]

More recent figures point the same way. A 2025 Lagos Business School report found that 22.8% of Nigerian family-owned businesses had completed a formal succession plan and 20.2% had not begun the process.[3] Only 24.6% of the business leaders surveyed believed their children were interested in continuing the family business.[3]

What does a succession plan actually contain?

A succession plan answers four questions before they become emergencies: who will lead, who will own, how that choice is made, and what happens if the founder dies or falls ill without warning. It should also say who controls bank accounts, signatures and company decisions in the meantime, so the business can keep paying staff and suppliers while the longer questions are settled. The common tools are not complicated, and most cost far less than the disputes they prevent.

A family constitution sets out the rules: who may work in the business and on what terms, how family members are paid, how decisions are taken and how disagreements are settled. Separating ownership from management lets the family keep its shares while professionals, family or not, run the company. A board with outside members gives the business a check on decisions that does not depend on family loyalty. A holding company or trust can keep shares together, so a business is not split into ever-smaller pieces each time it passes to the next generation.

Preparing heirs is the step most often skipped. It means deciding early which children, if any, want to run the business, giving them real responsibility before they inherit it, and accepting that the right leader may come from outside the family.

What happens with and without one?

Nigerian business history has examples on both sides. Chief MKO Abiola built the Concord Group across publishing, aviation, banking and oil services; it began winding down after his death in 1998.[3] Otunba Subomi Balogun founded First City Merchant Bank in 1982 and spent roughly two decades preparing his son, Ladi, before handing over group leadership.[3] Chief Michael Ade-Ojo incorporated Elizade in 1971; the group now combines professional management with family ownership.[3]

The handover is visible in Nigeria’s largest group too. In February 2026, Aliko Dangote moved his three daughters, Mariya, Halima and Fatima, into expanded executive roles, including in cement, food and the commercial leadership of the oil and gas division.[3]

The oldest example of a deliberate structure is European. Mayer Amschel Rothschild sent his five sons to five different cities, and formal partnership deeds, renegotiated over decades, held the family business together.[3]

What are wealthy families doing with their money now?

The UBS survey also shows families on the move. 60% plan to change their long-term investment mix in the next 12 months, the highest share UBS has recorded.[1] 65% expect confidence in the US dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency to weaken.[1] 65% have invested in artificial intelligence, and 24% hold crypto, usually around 1% of their portfolio.[1]

Many of these offices are young. 56% serve the founding generation and 58% the second, so for many the first real handover still lies ahead.[1] The urge to reshuffle is strongest in the Middle East, where 82% plan changes, and in Southeast Asia, at 81%.[1]

One figure matters for succession more than the rest: 77% of these families still own an operating business.[1] For most of them, the family fortune and the family company are the same thing. That is also true of most Nigerian wealth, which is why a missing plan threatens a business and its workers, not just a bank balance.

This article explains general structures for education. It is not legal or tax advice. Trusts, holding companies and family agreements have legal and tax effects that differ from case to case, and need advice from qualified professionals.