For today’s webcast we had the great pleasure to count Ray Soudah as a guest at Arvetica. He is founder of independent M&A advisory boutique MilleniumAssociates, which specializes in the financial services industry with a particular emphasis on global wealth and asset management.

Enjoy the full webcast:

Ray first gave us a brief outlook for the private banking industry over the next few months. He points out that the biggest risk that private banks currently face is the ability to grow and recruit adequate numbers of managers and private bankers for their businesses.

This is also part of the explanation why private banks have such high valuation levels at the moment. In the current market conditions it is very difficult to grow organically, considering the competition for scarce human resources. The demand for private banks that are willing to sell has increased manifold. However, very few institutions are actually considering to sell. Ray comments:

human nature being what it is we had very few buyers when prices were 1/3 the level they are today and now we have 3 times as many buyers when prices are three times as high.

We rounded off the webcast with a glance at innovative business models in private banking and wealth management. Ray Soudah particularly likes what he calls freelance investment boutiques. These are boutiques that have the freedom to develop investment strategies away from the standardized organizations. They can offer HNWI and Sovereign Funds the attractive investment ideas they are looking for.

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