Single Family Offices (SFOs) licensing exemptions
Information required to assess Single Family Office (SFO) licensing exemption in Singapore
last revised on 12 October 2021
The following information would be useful to facilitate MAS’ assessment of such an application for exemption to be an SFO:
- Names of the shareholders and directors of the SFO;
- A chart depicting the shareholding structure of the SFO;
- A description of how the SFO is related to the investment fund vehicle and the family/beneficiaries;
- A description of the profile of the family whose assets will be managed by the SFO; and.
- A description of the nature of activities to be carried out by the SFO.
MAS considers the following arrangements to be broadly typical of SFO arrangements. An SFO which has (or plans to have) these arrangements is advised to include the information when applying for licensing exemption:
- Where there is no common holding company, but the assets managed by the SFO are held directly by natural persons of a single family;
- Where assets are held under a discretionary trust, the settlor of the trust and the beneficiaries are members of the same family;
- Where a family trust is set up for charitable purposes, the charitable trusts are funded exclusively by settlor(s) from a single family;
- Where non-family members such as key employees of the SFO are shareholders in the SFO for the purpose of alignment of economic interest and risk-sharing, the initial assets and additional injection of funds are funded exclusively by a single family.