Urs Brutsch, Managing Partner & Founder, HP Wealth Management

Biz@India

March-April 2014

More and more Indian families emerging

Urs Brutsch, Managing Partner & Founder,HP Wealth Management

HP Wealth Management Singapore Pte Ltd is an independent wealth management firm founded in 2009 by Urs Brutsch to provide independent and professional investment advice, and tailor-made investment management services to high net worth individuals and families. After a number of assignments and positions, in 2004 he joined Clariden Bank, a subsidiary of Credit Suisse to set up a booking centre in Singapore and to expand the business across Asia. His last position was Head of Asia Pacific and Branch Manager for Clariden Leu Singapore.
 
• Tell us something about your organisation. When was it initiated and how has it evolved over the years?
 
HP Wealth Management was founded in 2009 and today consists of three partners and a total of 10 staff. The partners are all senior bankers with on average more than 25 years of experience in the business. The driving force behind it was the belief of the partners that the traditional Private Banking model was outdated. We felt that clients require a different approach form the traditional product push of the large providers. We wanted to align ourselves with the client and make sure the client understands that we work for him/her.

• What kind of services do you provide and how can these benefit the UHNWIs?

Our core competence is managing money, both on a discretionary and advisory basis. In addition to that we run an Asian equity fund (long only, Asia ex- Japan) and offer family office services. We offer consolidation of accounts across different managers, manage the managers, help families to establish their investment policy, monitor their overall risk and advise them on anything else where they believe we can add value.

• Are your existing clients single family units or multiple families?

We work for single family offices (SFO), where we manage money for them but are also acting as the family office for smaller families who cannot afford to run a SFO.

• What is your firm’s investment philosophy?

We are long term investors, not traders. We believe in the traditional asset classes and only use structured products in exceptional situations. We only invest in things we fully understand.

• How are your teams structured to deliver services to the clients? Do you have different services for different UHNWIs – inheritors, selfmade and professionals?

We have no segmentation. We are a boutique and every client is different, hence we adapt our delivery to what the client needs.

We have a full-time risk analyst in our office, ensuring that our investments are in line with the client’s risk profile, but also with our own asset allocation models, which are established during our monthly investment committee meetings

• What are the top three characteristics that distinguish your firm the most from your competitors?

I think number one is in the experience that we have gained over so many years in the industry in Asia. Then I think we have a robust investment process with a proven track record, particularly in the Asian equity space. Last, but not least, we have a very transparent pricing: we do not work with retrocessions, i.e. the client pays us a fee and hence our interest is perfectly aligned with the client. We don’t have to sell products to generate revenues.

• What communication methods have you used with your clients?

Again, this depends entirely on the client. But it is a mix of personal meetings, phone calls and email.

• Do you provide any client education programmes?Please mention.

No, we are too small for this.

• What is your approach towards risk management?

We have a full-time risk analyst in our office, ensuring that our investments are in line with the client’s risk profile, but also with our own asset allocation models, which are established during our monthly investment committee meetings. In addition to this our compliance officer acts as an additional layer of control. The partners review all discretionary accounts at least once a month.

• Is there any impact of economic slowdown on the demand? Are clients more cost conscious or quality conscious in the times of slowdown?

We have seen good growth since we opened in 2009. I believe that clients increasingly see value in independent advice. We are not driven by product targets or other objectives – we are aligning ourselves with the client.

• What kind of potential do you see for the Indian family office business? What is your outlook? What are the current trends and opportunities?

Like in the rest of Asia, this is at a very early stage. I believe that we will see a lot more family offices emerging. There is a wide-spread debate that Asian families do not want to enter multi-family office set-ups, but I think the economics will drive many families to such an approach. To run a SFO can be quite expensive. I am very optimistic that more and more families will organize themselves with their own structure. Whether they manage money themselves or not, whether they team up with other families or go it on their own, I believe that there is tremendous growth in this segment, and we would like to be part of this growth in Asia.