Real assets. Substance over paper wealth.
Wealth meant to carry across three generations does not survive a full business cycle in a purely paper-based portfolio. This pillar page organises our articles on real-asset allocation, inflation protection and the question of why physical scarcity remains its own asset class.
Why real assets serve structurally different functions for a family office
An institutional investor allocating against a benchmark optimises for relative performance over five to seven years. A family office with permanent-capital character optimises for something else. For real preservation of purchasing power across three generations under political and monetary uncertainty. These two optimisation functions lead to fundamentally different portfolio constructions.
In this logic, real assets are not a yield instrument in the narrow sense. They are a structural element. A directly held industrial participation, an agricultural plot in Lower Austria, a precious-metals position in a Swiss bonded warehouse, a portfolio of limited single-malt bottlings with documented provenance. What these positions share is that their value base is not derived from a counterparty's promise but from physical or legal scarcity that cannot be replicated by central-bank policy.
The monetary context to 2030
The ECB balance sheet has expanded since 2008 from roughly EUR 1.5 trillion to over EUR 8.8 trillion at peak. The unwind is slower than the expansion. In parallel, Germany's debt-to-GDP ratio sits structurally above 75 percent following the defence and infrastructure packages of 2024 to 2026. Switzerland is an exception in this configuration. Austria follows the German line.
From this configuration, an investor with a generational horizon faces a simple question. What share of wealth may be held in nominal claims against states and banks whose refinancing capacity would be doubtful absent continuous monetary expansion? The historically grounded answer, depending on family and mandate, is twenty-five to fifty percent. The remainder belongs in substance.
What counts as substance and what does not
Substance in the strict sense includes direct corporate participations with cash-flow-producing assets, productive land holdings, precious metals in segregated custody, documented rare collectibles with an established secondary market, and critical commodities in physical storage. What does not count as substance is what looks like substance. ETFs on commodity futures are a derivative on a derivatives market in which warehousing is externally booked. Synthetically replicated products that concentrate sixty-five percent US large-cap technology in MSCI World ETFs are not diversification but a bet on a handful of companies.
Bitcoin deserves its own classification. The argument from digital scarcity is correct in the protocol's construction. It differs from physical scarcity in one decisive point. A physical gold-bar position in a bonded warehouse exists independently of the functioning of power grids, the internet and a global consensus infrastructure. This property cannot be substituted.
The regulatory dimension
Real-asset allocation in DACH is not trivial from a tax and corporate-law perspective. SFDR classification influences which real-asset investments are mandate-eligible. The German Inheritance and Gift Tax Act (ErbStG) distinguishes between private and business assets with substantial consequences for preferential treatment. Swiss VAT on precious metals, storage rules under the EU Customs Code, and agricultural-law approval requirements in Bavaria and Lower Austria are not detail questions. They are the actual structuring work.
Anyone allocating real assets without this structuring work creates wealth that, on inheritance, is exposed to a tax burden which destroys the cumulative real return of multiple decades. Dr. Tillmann Lauk coordinates this structuring work for our family-office mandates. The effort is considerable. It is not optional.
The thesis. Anyone in a multi-generational mandate allocating more than twenty-five percent to nominal claim positions confuses liquidity illusion with safety, and real assets are not the yield leg of such a portfolio but its foundation.
Articles in this cluster
Member articles are currently available in German only.
Real assets over paper wealth
The structural role of physical substance in a generational portfolio. On cash-flow production, scarcity and the limits of central-bank balance-sheet cosmetics.
Inflation protection with real assets
Which real-asset classes actually preserve real purchasing power and which merely correlate. An empirical reading across four decades of German inflation cycles.
Geopolitics and real assets
When sanctions regimes can freeze wealth, the choice of jurisdiction becomes a substance question. On Swiss bonded warehouses, neutral jurisdictions and custody chains.
Bitcoin vs. physical scarcity
Digital and physical scarcity are not interchangeable. A sober comparison of their respective functional logic in a multi-generational portfolio.
Preserving wealth across generations
The allocation logic that lets wealth survive three business cycles looks different from a mandate with an annual benchmark. On structuring and discipline.
Limited spirits as an investment
Single-malt bottlings with documented provenance are an asset class with their own valuation rules. On cask trading, cask-strength bottlings and storage logistics.
Provenance and value · Collectibles
For collectibles, an unbroken ownership chain is worth more than restoration. How provenance enables market value in the first place.
ETF drawbacks · Concentration risk
A passive world portfolio today is a concentrated bet on ten US companies. What the marketing language of diversification effectively obscures.
Related pillar pages
Pillar page curated by Dr. Raphael Nagel, founding partner. Tactical Management operates from Munich, Vienna and Baar (Zug).