Investors who hold discretionary mandates with UBS Global Wealth Management in Singapore and Hong Kong are using this month to decide what their 2027 portfolios are allowed to become. The live question is whether the largest US listed companies remain an unexamined result of a global equity index, or whether that concentration is put on the fee ticket as a risk the mandate is paid to limit. Mark Haefele, chief investment officer of UBS Global Wealth Management, has for years published scenarios, a strategic allocation and tactical bands. No figure for a single ceiling on US single-name risk, applying to every Asia discretionary account, is available outside the client agreement. It should not be estimated. The limit belongs in the investment policy statement before the first rebalance of 2027.
The fee is the commercial point. A discretionary mandate is sold as an allocation decision and as a discipline that stops the benchmark from doing the thinking. Index providers publish global equity benchmarks in which the United States accounts for a majority of market capitalisation. The exact weight moves and should be taken from the provider on the day. An investor whose policy portfolio simply holds the world therefore holds that concentration unless the policy says otherwise. An advisory investor can own the same index and ask for a look-through without paying a discretionary fee to discover the fact later. No public Asia fee card that prices this control is available to cite, and no basis-point figure will be inferred here. If the 2027 mandate cannot show a decision on concentration, currency and sale order, the fee is a custody charge with a management label.
Currency stops one hedge rule from serving both booking centres. Under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Linked Exchange Rate System, a currency board keeps the Hong Kong dollar linked to the US dollar. An unhedged US equity holding is therefore not mainly a currency bet for an investor who spends in Hong Kong dollars. It is still a concentration bet. The Monetary Authority of Singapore runs an exchange rate-based policy centred on the Singapore dollar nominal effective exchange rate, a trade-weighted basket, so the same holding mixes equity concentration with a dollar exposure the investor may not have chosen. A uniform hedge ratio for Asia discretionary mandates is not a figure available to cite. The 2027 policy should name the hedge, the instrument and who may change it between reviews. The same choice faces investors from across Asia-Pacific whose mandates are booked in those two centres.
If the 2027 mandate cannot show a decision on concentration, currency and sale order, the fee is a custody charge with a management label.
Capital calls tighten the wording. Commitments made in earlier years to private equity, private credit and infrastructure still draw cash. The question for the coming year is which liquid sleeve funds the draws, and what that does to the concentration limit. Selling diversified holdings to meet a call, while the largest US positions are left untouched, raises the share of risk in a few names. Trimming those names keeps the limit and realises gains, which can breach a family's rules on realised profits or on drift from the strategic mix. Securities-backed lending, a standard facility at UBS and at its peers, adds a further constraint, because concentrated equity is often the collateral. A tighter limit can reduce borrowing headroom under a loan-to-value schedule that is not published as one Asia-wide rate. The mandate should say which constraint wins if a call, a hedge and a lending covenant cannot be met together.
Hou Wey Fook, chief investment officer at DBS Bank, has published a process framed around an income and growth strategy, which at least names a home for cash not needed for calls. Jean Chia, chief investment officer at Bank of Singapore, publishes a house view that can be set against the investor's reference currency. Willem Sels, global chief investment officer at HSBC Global Private Banking and Wealth, and Yves Bonzon, chief investment officer and head of investment management at Julius Baer, have published scenario work for several years. Pictet Wealth Management, where César Pérez Ruiz is chief investment officer and head of investments, has long preferred thematic holdings that will not copy a capitalisation-weighted index. In the public documents available to cite, none of these institutions states a common numerical cap on US single-name risk in Asia discretionary accounts. Private client investment policy statements may differ. Multi-family offices in Singapore and Hong Kong should not treat that public silence as a shared underweight or a shared overweight.
Through 2027 the limit has to be a standing clause, not a tilt that expires with the next house view. The clause needs four lines. They cover the maximum contribution of the largest US holdings to equity risk, the hedge against the investor's own currency, the order in which assets are sold to meet capital calls, and the effect of that order on lending capacity. UBS can apply the clause inside a discretionary mandate, or as an adviser while the family office keeps allocation authority and pays for execution, foreign exchange and credit. A fee that implies the first arrangement, on a portfolio that delivers the second, does not hold. This is not a completed reallocation and not a disclosed cut to any weight. No such figure has been published for general use. Investors should write the clause while the 2027 allocation is still a document rather than a drift.