Wealthy American families are increasingly seeking to book assets outside the United States — a shift so pronounced that one of Citi’s top wealth executives says she’s never seen anything like it in her career.
“The first time ever in my career, that I hear U.S. clients wanted to book their assets outside of the U.S.,” Darlene Patterson, Global Head of Client Solutions at Citi Wealth, told Fortune in a recent interview. Patterson, who leads a team formed specifically to address clients’ cross-border needs holistically across Citi’s business lines and geographies, distinguished this movement from outright expatriation, pushing back on narratives — like the one surrounding actor George Clooney’s French citizenship — that framed wealthy Americans as abandoning the country entirely. “I wouldn’t call it completely leaving the U.S., in my opinion,” she said, adding that clients are “not necessarily expatriating from the U.S. either.”
Instead, she described a pursuit of “optionality”: wealthy Americans obtaining additional residencies or golden visas in Italy, Portugal, Jersey in the Channel Islands, Australia and New Zealand. “They’re just looking for more lifestyle enhancement, optionality,” Patterson said, noting clients are “somewhat concerned about policy risk in this country.” That’s a key driver that can’t be underestimated, she said: the desire for a “stable, consistent political environment.”
