Beyond banking: Navigating family wealth with multi-asset strategies

Family businesses have long been central to Africa’s private sector. As the landscape shifts, the demands on structures, strategies, and mindsets evolve with it. Speaking at the Family Business Summit 2025, Abiodun Azeez, Chief Representative Officer of MCB Group in Nigeria, addressed these dynamics in his keynote titled Beyond Banking: Multi-Asset Portfolio Strategies for Family Enterprises.

His message landed with clarity: wealth management today requires more than traditional banking. It calls for a strategy that spans asset classes, crosses jurisdictions, and remains anchored in the family’s long-term vision.

A banking partner that understands family complexity

MCB sponsored this year’s summit and, fresh from being named The Banker’s African Bank of the Year 2024, brought a clear message to a room of owners, advisors, and allocators. With deep roots in Mauritius, a leading private-wealth hub in Africa according to the Africa Wealth Report 2025, MCB has expanded its reach across key African markets, including Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya.

Its offering is supported by the Mauritius International Financial Centre (MIFC), recognised as Africa’s only Established Domicile for investment vehicles. This platform positions MCB as a valued partner for high-net-worth families navigating generational transitions, jurisdictional complexity, and investment diversification.

Reframing diversification for family enterprises

Abiodun positioned diversification as a set of linked choices, assets, geographies, liquidity tiers, and governance. For family businesses, these choices link directly to values, cohesion, and legacy.

Beyond mixing equities and bonds, families are combining public markets, private equity and venture, direct deals, and real assets like real estate, infrastructure, and agriculture. A smaller sleeve goes to alternatives, from collectibles to digital assets, sized to the family’s risk appetite and purpose. The result? Wider opportunity, with more moving parts to monitor across regions and generations.

As he put it, families want a plan that is both ambitious and durable. “Families are asking, how do I structure a portfolio that reflects our ambitions while protecting our future? What belongs in the long-term war chest, and how do we maintain oversight across continents, sectors, and generations?”

The takeaway is clarity. Assets have defined roles, liquidity tiers follow scheduled reviews, and governance captures decisions, rebalancing, and reporting in one place.

Structuring for growth, across borders

Jurisdictional diversification now sits at the core of decision-making. Families look for currency options, market access, and legal protections, often through holding companies, trusts, or family offices. Mauritius stands out with 46 Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs) and 30 Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (IPPAs), alongside investment-grade sovereign ratings. Taken together, these pillars create a rules-based path for cross-border investing and succession planning.

The toolkit that supports this path keeps expanding. Variable Capital Companies allow asset and risk segmentation inside one corporate shell, while the Virtual Asset and Initial Token Offering Services Act gives clarity on digital-asset activity. Recent budget measures enable bullion banking, allowing licensed banks to hold, store, and trade precious metals for clients, which helps families ring-fence strategies, manage risk, and preserve value.

The fund ecosystem is deep and active. As of January 2025, Mauritius hosted 942 active investment funds, offering families legal infrastructure and service depth that support both scale and governance.

A shifting wealth map, with new hotspots emerging

According to the Africa Wealth Report 2025, Africa’s millionaire population is projected to grow by 65% over the next decade. Mauritius stands out as the continent’s fastest-growing wealth hub, with a 63% increase in high-net-worth individuals over the past ten years. Its Black River district now tops the list of Africa’s fastest-growing millionaire hotspots, ahead of Marrakech and South Africa’s Whale Coast.

These patterns reflect a broader behavioural shift. Families are refining how they build and preserve wealth, adding alternative investments, applying ESG filters, and seeking closer alignment between performance and shared values.

However, governance still lags progress in many markets. Only 21% of family businesses have formal dispute-resolution frameworks in place, and succession planning often trails expansion. This is where banking partners and specialist advisors can add real value, aligning ownership, governance, and liquidity with the investment plan.

MCB’s role in this new era of family wealth

MCB works with family clients through coordinated Private Wealth and Corporate teams, aligning personal ambitions with business goals. The emphasis is on practical portfolio construction across asset classes, jurisdiction-aware structuring, and governance that supports decision-making under pressure.

As Abiodun concluded, “The future of African family businesses will not be shaped by financial products alone. It will be defined by families who are prepared to structure wisely, invest intentionally, and adapt together.”

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