\n \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bAt the Hubbis Middle East Private Capital Forum 2026, Gary Dugan, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Global CIO Office, urged investors to begin asset allocation with a view of how the world is changing. His concerns were rising barriers to trade and movement, heavier public debt, a generational transfer of wealth and the social consequences of technology.
\n
\nDugan contrasted the decades after the Berlin Wall fell, when global integration helped growth and market returns, with a period in which governments place greater weight on security and domestic resilience. He argued that portfolios built around the old conditions deserve a fresh examination, including the geography of equities and the roles of commodities, land, infrastructure and private credit.
\n
\nThis was a deliberately strong macro view, not a prediction that each proposed asset will outperform. Dugan\u2019s presentation was most useful as a set of questions for investment committees and families whose assumptions were formed during a different economic era.\n <\/p>\n
Key Takeaways<\/p>\n
\n\tGeopolitics Comes First: Dugan wants investment committees to test the effects of trade barriers, security policy and supply-chain friction before relying on historical asset-class returns.
\n\tInflation May Be Less Stable: He expects more volatile prices as spare capacity declines and governments pay more for resilient local supply.
\n\tThe Generational Shift Has Two Clocks: Younger voters may change policy before wealth transfers from older owners, creating tension over housing, taxation and investment priorities.
\n\tOld Benchmarks Deserve Review: A market-cap-weighted equity index gives the United States a large allocation, but that weight is not itself an investment thesis.
\n\tReal Assets Have a New Case: Commodities, productive land and infrastructure may benefit from supply constraints and the move from just-in-time efficiency towards redundancy.
\n\tCredit Requires Selectivity: Dugan questioned an automatic preference for long government bonds and saw scope for carefully chosen private credit, while recognising the risks of illiquidity and borrower default.
\n\tTechnology Needs Social Consent: The scale and financing of artificial-intelligence investment should be weighed alongside its effects on employment, income and public attitudes.
<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
From Falling Walls to Rising Barriers<\/p>\n
Dugan began with the long tail of globalisation after the end of the Cold War. More open trade, cross-border investment and lower defence spending formed part of a favourable backdrop for markets. His slides put foreign direct investment at roughly 1% of global GDP in 1990 and 4.6% at its exceptional 2000 peak, while global trade rose from about 38% to 60% of global GDP over a longer period. Those figures are a historical framing, not a model for reversing every gain.<\/p>\n
The question for today\u2019s investment committee is what happens when governments value resilience and national security more highly than the lowest-cost supply chain. \u201cNational security is displacing economic efficiency,\u201d Dugan said. More local capacity, duplicated infrastructure, trade restrictions and strategic stockpiles can raise costs even when demand is weak. That led him to regard inflation as a structural source of volatility, rather than a problem explained solely by a conventional business cycle.<\/p>\n
Higher public debt adds to the constraint. Governments must finance security, ageing populations and demands for public services while growth and productivity may be less dependable. Dugan did not offer a single forecast for inflation or yields. He pressed committees to decide which parts of their existing portfolios assume that cheap global supply and low friction will return.<\/p>\n
Political Influence and Family Wealth Move at Different Speeds<\/p>\n
The presentation\u2019s next shift was generational. Dugan described an electorate in which younger cohorts increasingly shape political choices, while older households still control a large share of wealth. His US slide placed baby boomers at 52% of household net worth in the first quarter of 2026. \u201cCapital is old. Political momentum is young,\u201d the presentation put it.<\/p>\n
Housing affordability, pensions, taxes and the distribution of opportunity may therefore become more contested. Dugan expected younger voters and heirs to bring different priorities to both public policy and family portfolios. These are his judgments, not settled forecasts of election results or a uniform description of younger investors.<\/p>\n
For family offices, the conflict is immediate rather than theoretical. A founder who built a business may prefer a familiar mix of listed securities and capital preservation; successors may ask for different regions, real assets or social and environmental outcomes. Governance and succession work must make room for those objectives before ownership changes hands. Dugan\u2019s point was that an asset allocation cannot be separated from who will own and use the wealth.<\/p>\n
A Portfolio Built for Resilience<\/p>\n
Dugan set out a menu rather than a finished model. He sees a case for commodities where supply is constrained, and for productive land as food, water and local resource needs gain importance. Infrastructure may be required to build spare capacity and alternative routes, replacing some of the narrow efficiency of just-in-time systems. Real estate exposure also needs to reflect housing affordability and a potentially larger rental market.<\/p>\n
In credit, he challenged the habit of treating sovereign borrowers as inherently safer than every company. Some private borrowers may offer stronger economics than highly indebted governments, although that judgment requires underwriting, collateral analysis and an appropriate allowance for illiquidity. His slides also warned that long-duration private equity and venture positions could be vulnerable when investors need cash.<\/p>\n
For equities, Dugan questioned whether a large allocation to US stocks should follow mechanically from an MSCI market-cap weighting. He identified Africa, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam as markets to examine for future opportunity, while acknowledging that their market depth and investable capacity differ. A geographical shift would still need company-level work, currency analysis and a plan for liquidity.<\/p>\n
Technology and the Limits of an Investment Theme<\/p>\n
Technology was the final tension in his argument. Artificial intelligence requires enormous infrastructure spending, some of it debt-funded, and can concentrate exposure in a small set of suppliers and customers. Dugan warned investors to examine cash generation and the durability of demand rather than assume that every participant in the build-out will earn an attractive return.<\/p>\n
He ended with a memory of the 1975 BBC children\u2019s serial The Changes, in which people turn against technology. The reference was intentionally provocative: if technological progress fails to support employment, income and an attainable life for the next generation, public acceptance cannot be taken for granted. Regulation and political resistance then become investment variables as well as social questions.<\/p>\n
Dugan\u2019s conclusion was to revisit the foundations of a portfolio before adjusting a few percentage points between familiar assets. The globalisation dividend, the distribution of family wealth and the financing of new technology all shape what an investor can reasonably expect from the next decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bAt the Hubbis Middle East Private Capital Forum 2026, Gary Dugan, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":923799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[173438,173442,173450,173446,173437,173441,173449,173445,173439,173443,173451,173447,173436,173440,173448,173444,45,49,48,15954,133,131,132,9210],"class_list":["post-923798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-asia-private-banking","tag-asia-private-banking-news","tag-asia-private-banking-online-training","tag-asia-private-banking-training","tag-asia-wealth-management","tag-asia-wealth-management-news","tag-asia-wealth-management-online-training","tag-asia-wealth-management-training","tag-asian-private-banking","tag-asian-private-banking-news","tag-asian-private-banking-online-training","tag-asian-private-banking-training","tag-asian-wealth-management","tag-asian-wealth-management-news","tag-asian-wealth-management-online-training","tag-asian-wealth-management-training","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-e-learning","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=923798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}