Global advice firm set to expand to Australia

Speaking at the Dubai Expo this week, the boutique wealth management firm’s co-head, Hector Douglas, confirmed plans to expand operations in Sydney, as well as Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

“Around 50 percent of the firm’s wealth management clients [are] outside of Europe and the United Kingdom, mainly from emerging markets, and the firm sees growth coming out of all of those areas,” Mr Douglas said.

“The reason we think the wealth management business is going to be faster growing than financial services overall is the growth of wealth coming from emerging market countries.”

Gladstone currently boasts US$1.8 billion of assets under administration.

Mr Douglas identified Australia as a strong private banking and trust centre for South Asia and the Oceania, also noting a focus to build on its US firm that has around 100 financial advisers on board.

“We feel good about our competitive position (in the United States),” he said.

“We think there’s more potential and a better focus for clients to concentrate on having the best 100 financial consultants we can have, rather than trying to double or triple that number.”

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.