A family-owned private bank is aiming to use co-investment
‘club deal’ opportunities with ultra high net worth (UHNW)
investors to build out its UK business.
Banque Havilland is a
relatively new entrant into international private banking. It hopes
to receive its FSA licence by year-end and has established a UK
representative office to target the UHNW segment.
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By GlobalDataFinanced by the Rowland
family, whose net worth is estimated at about £630m ($992m), Banque
Havilland was created when the Rowlands bought the Luxembourg
branch of the former Icelandic bank Kaupthing for an estimated
£183m in 2009.
The Kaupthing unit was
restructured at the time into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ banks. The bad
assets were pooled together into Pillar, which are still managed by
the bank, and the good assets formed to create Banque
Havilland.
Monaco purchase
follows Kaupthing buy
Last year it acquired
Dexia Private Bank Monaco from Dexia Banque Internationale à
Luxembourg, including 10 staff and about €13m in assets under
management (AuM).
Banque Havilland’s UK
business has been established with two specific target groups in
mind: The first are UHNW investors with a minimum of £50m who are
interested in co-investing in so-called ‘club deals’ with the
Rowland family.
The second are clients
with £5m to £20m in AuM interested in discretionary accounts.
“We see ourselves as one
of several banking relationships a UHNW individual will have. The
attractions will be the ability to co-invest,” says COO Venetia
Lean. “The last question people often ask when we tell them about
us is: ‘Can we buy a bank?’,’’ she added.
An example of the kind of
flagship deals Banque Havilland is looking to create is a high-end
commercial property offering in Luxembourg which the family has
already invested in.
The bank, which is named
after the Rowlands’ Havilland Hall in Guernsey, was started after
patriarch David Rowland became concerned at the depth of the crisis
in 2008 that he might not get all of his assets back.
Lean, who is the eldest
of Rowland’s eight children, says her father lost faith in the five
to six banks he had banking relationships with, and decided to set
up a family-owned bank that was safe.
Initially they looked at
setting up a Swiss bank, but this was “painful” according to Lean,
and they took the opportunity to acquire Kaupthing’s unit.
No room for US
clients
Lean says when the family
took over Kaupthing’s business in July 2009 it had €500m in AuM and
150 staff.
Almost three years later
it manages about €500m in AuM with about 54 staff, and in the past
three months it has gathered €50m.
Banque Havilland started
with more than 3,000 accounts and closed out about 2,500.
“We see ourselves as an
international bank. We have CIS, Middle East and Thai clients – but
we are saying no to US citizens,” says Lean. “We’re not ruling out
having an international presence, but for the moment the focus is
building out the UK.”
Lean says the bank is
family owned but they recognise the importance of having investment
specialists to drive the strategic growth of the bank.
It will focus on a
certain number of sectors, including real estate, oil and gas,
commodities, financial services and technology where the family has
expertise.
Banque Havilland has
recruited former Citi Private Bank managing director Nicholas
Parker as its CEO for private banking to spearhead the build-out of
its UK operations.
Parker is understood to
be bringing a small team of up to six bankers with him.
It will soon name a head of asset management who has been tasked
with building a suite of products. Lean says they are strong in
fixed income, cash and currencies but “we need to expand it into
something coherent and relevant,” she concludes.
