How To Protect A Global Family Balance Sheet In 2026
Six million Swiss francs in bank accounts provides a substantial financial reserve, at least until CHF 4 million in private-fund capital calls, a CHF 2 million tax bill and a property refinancing requiring another CHF 3 million in cash all fall due within the same twelve months. Your family suddenly faces a CHF 3 million shortfall, even though it may still own assets worth tens or hundreds of millions.
Your family office must now decide where to find the money. Should it sell shares, borrow from a bank or transfer cash from another family company? Each option comes at a cost, and not all are immediately available. Some assets require board approval before they can be sold, others serve as collateral for existing loans, while further capital remains tied up in private investment funds. The family’s overall wealth may be substantial, but the money it can actually use tells a different story.
Why a Family Worth Millions Can Still Run Short of Cash
A substantial fortune does not guarantee that your family can meet every financial obligation on time.
Holding accounts with several banks does not necessarily remove your dependence on a single lender.
Ownership structures, signing authorities and loan agreements can determine when your family can access its money.
Your Family’s Wealth May Look Better on Paper Than It Does in Practice
Your private banking team values family businesses, monitors property holdings and receives regular statements from private-equity fund administrators. These reports provide extensive financial information, although they rarely combine everything into one complete picture of your family’s finances. Your private-equity fund may report a rising investment value even though its manager still expects investors to contribute millions in additional capital. A property may have appreciated considerably, but its mortgage could mature within months. A family business may report excellent results and still ask shareholders for more capital to finance expansion.
All three investments may be performing well while requiring additional funding at much the same time. The differences become equally important when your family needs to sell. Under normal market conditions, it may be able to dispose of CHF 10 million in listed securities and receive the proceeds within days. Selling a private company can take years, particularly when buyers need financing or shareholders disagree on the price. Legal arrangements can introduce further delays if a holding company or trust owns the shares and the relevant governing bodies must approve their sale.
Wealth reports generally record these assets according to their value, without necessarily showing how quickly the family could turn them into cash.
Private Equity Keeps Investing While Families Wait for Their Money
The first half of 2026 revealed a notable imbalance in the private-equity market. Firms invested approximately $1 trillion across 9’294 transactions, but completed only 1’315 exits, the lowest first-half total in more than a decade. Exit value reached $570 billion, with a relatively small number of large transactions accounting for a significant share. According to KPMG, managers continued acquiring businesses while many investors waited longer for their capital to return.
The consequences extend well beyond reported performance for families investing in these funds. Fund managers can call additional committed capital regardless of whether investors have received distributions from earlier investments. The obligation to contribute follows the fund agreement, while distributions depend on when managers sell portfolio companies or generate proceeds through other transactions.
Your family office might, for example, expect CHF 5 million in distributions and anticipate CHF 5 million in capital calls during the same year. On an annual cash-flow forecast, the two amounts appear to offset each other. In practice, your family could pay the first CHF 5 million in January and receive the expected distributions only in November, leaving it to finance every other obligation in the intervening months. Your family office therefore needs to know not only how much money will come in and go out during the year, but precisely when payments fall due. Annual income may cover annual expenditure, yet a family can still run short of cash when receipts arrive after its financial obligations must be settled.
A Dollar Loan Cannot Be Repaid With a Portfolio Valuation
Alongside the timing of payments, the currencies in which your family earns money and settles its obligations can change the amount of cash it needs. A family business may generate revenue in euros while its bank requires loan repayments in dollars. If the US currency strengthens, the company must devote a greater share of its euro income to the same repayment.
Similar differences arise throughout a family’s finances. Properties generate rental income in local currencies, banks collect interest under their loan agreements, and private funds call capital in the currencies in which they invest. Your family may therefore have ample income in one currency while needing cash in another.
Currency risk cannot be assessed solely by examining how many shares or bonds your family holds in dollars, euros or Swiss francs. The currencies in which it earns income, pays expenses and services debt are equally important.
According to the Bank for International Settlements, dollar-denominated foreign-currency credit to borrowers outside the United States reached $14.7 trillion at the end of March 2026, while euro-denominated foreign-currency credit to borrowers outside the euro area stood at €5.1 trillion. Dollar credit grew by 7.3% year on year and euro credit by 12%.
These figures illustrate the scale of borrowing in currencies that companies and other borrowers may not naturally earn through their operations. Your family may own dollar investments that rise in value when the dollar strengthens, but that does not automatically make the money available to service a dollar loan. The investments may be pledged to a bank, held through another company or intended to remain invested for years. Your family office therefore needs to monitor the currency composition of revenues, expenses, debt repayments and capital commitments as carefully as it monitors the currency allocation of its investment portfolio.
Four Banks May Still Leave You Dependent on One
Spreading wealth across several banks is a familiar principle of family wealth management. Many families, however, measure diversification by the value of deposits and investments held with each institution, while their borrowing arrangements may be concentrated elsewhere.
One bank may custody securities, another hold deposits and a third provide most of the short-term financing. Your family could hold only 15% of its investable assets with that third institution while relying on it for almost all its borrowing.
If the lender reduces its credit facilities, the other banking relationships may offer little immediate protection. Secured lending and derivatives can add further pressure, because falling securities prices reduce the collateral value against which banks are prepared to lend. Your family may consequently face a demand for additional collateral just as the market value of its investments is declining.
The collapse of Archegos in March 2021 demonstrated how several banking relationships can conceal concentrated financial risks. The family office used multiple prime brokers to finance large, concentrated positions, while individual banks lacked a complete view of its total exposure. When Archegos failed to meet margin calls, several major financial institutions suffered combined losses exceeding $10 billion, according to the US Federal Reserve.
Most family offices do not operate with such high leverage. Even under considerably more conservative financing arrangements, however, one lender may have a decisive influence over access to cash. If a bank terminates a credit facility or demands additional collateral, the family must respond within the terms of its agreement, while arranging replacement financing may take weeks or months. Your family office should know which bank provides each loan, which assets secure it and whether another institution could replace the financing in time. Yet access to credit may not resolve the problem if the family lacks the legal authority to transfer money or dispose of the assets it intends to use.
You Own the Assets. But Can You Access Them?
Your receive a wealth report and it includes a London property, a Swiss investment account, an interest in a Luxembourg fund and a manufacturing company in Germany. Although all four assets form part of the family’s economic wealth, each may operate under different ownership and governance arrangements. A company may own the property, a trust or foundation may hold the account, the fund’s general partner may control distributions, and two directors may need to authorise payments from the manufacturing business. Your family can therefore benefit financially from these assets without necessarily having the power to sell them or transfer their proceeds independently.
Under normal circumstances, these arrangements may cause few difficulties. The situation changes when your family needs cash quickly. An investment account may hold shares that can be traded within minutes, but the custodian cannot execute an instruction without approval from an authorised signatory. If that person is unavailable, the family may not receive the money in time.
Similar problems can arise in a family company that holds sufficient cash but requires two directors to approve a transfer. A power of attorney covering a personal bank account does not automatically give its holder authority over assets belonging to a company or foundation.
Your family office therefore needs to understand not only who owns each asset, but also who can authorise transactions, which documents are required and how approvals are obtained. Reviewing these arrangements in advance can help ensure that available cash can be used without unnecessary delay when a loan matures, a tax bill falls due or a fund issues a capital call.
Even well-organised legal structures and banking relationships, however, cannot guarantee that your family will always have sufficient cash. Financial markets may deteriorate just as several obligations require payment from the same resources.
When Several Financial Pressures Arrive in the Same Year
Banks and investment managers routinely stress-test portfolios against a 20% fall in equities, a 10% decline in property values or a 100-basis-point rise in interest rates. Such calculations show how much value a family might lose or how much more it could pay for financing, but they do not always reveal what happens when the same developments also affect income and the ability to meet financial obligations. A private-equity manager might call another CHF 3 million just as distributions from older funds begin to slow. Meanwhile, the family business decides not to pay a dividend because it needs cash to cover higher interest costs, while a stronger Swiss franc reduces the value of foreign investments when translated into the family’s home currency.
Six months later, a property loan approaches maturity. The family’s principal bank also demands additional collateral after the value of pledged securities has fallen. Your family must now fund several obligations at once, despite having less cash available and fewer opportunities to borrow.
Every possible response affects its ability to finance something else. Using reserves to meet the capital call leaves less money available for the property refinancing. Selling foreign shares may crystallise both investment and currency losses, while drawing on the credit facility reduces the borrowing capacity available for future obligations.
The family still has options, although they become more expensive as pressure builds. Your family office could postpone a discretionary distribution to family members, refinance a loan before maturity or move part of the portfolio into short-term liquid investments. It could also begin discussions with another bank while sufficient borrowing capacity remains to secure new financing.
These decisions are easier to make before a lender demands additional collateral or a fund manager sets a deadline for a capital call. Managing substantial family wealth involves considerably more than monitoring investment performance. Your family office must understand when obligations fall due, where cash can be obtained, how dependent the family is on individual banks and who has the authority to release funds.
Your family may own assets across the world, control successful businesses and generate strong investment returns. Yet if it needs money at the wrong time, from an account it cannot access or from a bank that is no longer willing to lend, the value of its portfolio will not solve the immediate problem.
Substantial wealth creates financial options. What matters is whether your family can use them when the money is needed.
References (APA Style)
1. KPMG International. (2026, July 27). Global PE market shows resilience with over $1 trillion in PE investment in first half of 2026, according to KPMG’s Pulse of Private Equity. https://kpmg.com/xx/en/media/press-releases/2026/07/global-pe-market-shows-resilience-with-over-1-trillion-in-pe-investment-in-first-half-of-2026.html
2. Bank for International Settlements. (2026, July). Statistical release: BIS international banking statistics and global liquidity indicators at end-March 2026. https://www.bis.org/publications/202607-commentary-ibs-gli
3. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. (2021, November). Supervision and Regulation Report: Supervisory Developments. https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2021-november-supervision-and-regulation-report-supervisory-developments.htm
