Former UAE bankers get into wealth management as more millionaires take up residence

Dubai: A group of ex-bankers in the UAE have come together to launch a new investment services company, at a time when the country has been seeing more inflows of the world’s super-wealthy taking up residence in the country. The DIFC in Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s ADGM have in the recent past seen a surge in global hedge funds and family offices  

The launch of Wealthbrix Capital Partners brings together former Emirates NBD private banking chief Rajesh Khanna as CEO and Dr. Hamad Buamim as Chairman. (Currently, Dr. Buamim, is chairman of DMCC.) The Wealthbrix team also has former Emirates NBD retail banking chief Suvo Sarkar as Vice-Chairman.

The strategy will be to manage client funds directly as well as offer direct wealth management services for family offices overseeing clients funds.

These are, without exaggeration, interesting times for the flow of HNWI funds into and out of the Gulf, with the recent Israel-Iran crisis adding to the uncertainties.

But, according to Khanna, “We've always seen that whenever there were similar disturbances like this in the region, the UAE and Dubai as a city always positioned itself as a more safe haven. We are of the opinion that the resilience the country has shown in previous years will continue.

“A lot of the ultra-high networth individuals - and more importantly the institutions and hedge fund managers that have come here – have done so with a lot of deep conviction. Because they look at this market and their entry over the longer term.”

Khanna, who left Emirates NBD last year after joining in 2008, isn’t too fixated on what sort of split there should be in retaining client funds in the region – and how much to take outside.

“If you are looking at the needs of an Emirati client, he might say, ‘I'm only interested in the region’,” said Khanna. “Obviously, the client’s portfolio would evolve in that direction. But if the risk assessment of the client throws up a profile where it’s something like 70% global and 30% regional, we will take a bespoke approach.

“With Wealthbrix, we are saying that we are not giving you a full menu of wealth management options. We are giving you access to the full kitchen - and the kitchen is multi-cuisine. If somebody likes Chinese, I cannot be serving a North Indian food, right. That's where the bespoke element of the of the advice comes in.”

Just recently, Emirates NBD confirmed a tie up with fund manager BlackRock to offer access to the private investment markets for its wealthy clients. Dubai’s Mashreq bank also offered its HNWIs the same option, through a tie up with Goldman Sachs.

Around 30,000 UHNWIs will come over to the UAE in next five years,” said Khanna. “So, there is there is a deep sense of visibility that the UAE market has in terms of where it’s heading.

“We will be targeting ‘MTMs’ – mid-tier millionaires, with between $5 million to $30 million of investable assets. Because the segmentation across traditional wealth platforms is so blurred, they tend to be neglected or are not well taken care of.

If you look at the total size of this market of assets under management coming under MTMs globally, it’s almost close to $55 trillion. This is the fastest growing segment within Middle East and Asia as well.

“We are also going to be addressing the ultra-high networth segment, which is defined as $30 million plus. Combine the two together, that becomes our total addressable market…”

Wealthbrix's top management

Steve Corrin will be the Head of Asset Management at Wealthbrix, while Vipul Malhan is Head of Private Wealth. Anthony Taylor will be Head of Real Estate, and Dheeraj Grover the Head of Products.

Apart from Malhan, who was with Mashreq, the others were with Emirates NBD.

"There are enough studies saying that if a single family office managing less than $700 million, it just doesn't make any sense to put the whole nine yards in terms of bringing a CIO, doing your own strategic and tactical asset allocation, setting up your middle office and back office," said Rajesh Khanna, CEO of Wealthbrix. "We can put all of this together to run your engine..."