“Off-piste” is a term usually for skiers who like to avoid the routine slopes and whizz down a more exciting piece of terrain. And as can sometimes happen, this can be dangerous for a novice.

But the term came up when this publication caught up with David Hayes, who heads up structured finance and real estate at Signia Wealth, the multi-family office that opened its doors for business 18 months ago, now based in the Marble Arch area in London.

In particular, Hayes and his colleagues look to find lending and cash management deals at prices and terms that cannot easily be found by an individual shopping around among banks, he said in a recent interview.

"After the credit-crunch, our clients were finding it difficult to obtain credit on sensible terms; there is much mis-pricing of credit in the current market and it was and remains a confusing market for clients. They don't know who to turn to for credit in the current market,” said the soft-spoken Irishman, who joined Signia after having been head of private banking in the UK for Anglo Irish bank. His own experience of the turmoil of Ireland’s hard-hit property market has proven useful, he says.

"We felt we could take this business on internally, using our experience and reputation. It is about knowing which banks have appetite for certain types of loans, having access to the key decision makers and enjoying a wider business relationship with them," he said. "We have helped clients secure finance on very attractive terms on residential and commercial property, portfolios, cash and other specialised assets,” he said.

Signia Wealth’s own ascent in 18 months – it now has around £2 billion of client money and 66 clients – highlights how upstart wealth managers were able to get a foothold in the market, taking advantage of how many high net worth clients were fed up with some of the large firms. Signia, which started in the spring of 2009, moved from the City area of London to its current abode in September 2010. Its chief executive is Nathalie Dauriac-Stoebe, who hails from the St Emilion region of western France with strong family links to the area’s illustrious wine industry. (She was also one of the four founding members of the Coutts Private Office, which focused on ultra high net worth clients).

As far as Hayes is concerned, Signia’s structured finance and property business is a great way to quickly inform clients about the firm’s qualities.

"Signia's core business [investment management] involves custodising client assets on the platforms of larger banks. But it is also about accessing the lending of these larger banks and leveraging our total relationship for the benefit of our clients," he said. The "buying power and reputation" of Signia gives the firm valuable negotiating power with banks.

Market muscle

"We don't want to spread ourselves too thinly and have relations with say, 10 to 15 banks. We would rather build meaningful relationships with a select number of partner banks to concentrate our fire-power, but as we grow we are starting to branch out,” Hayes continued.

As an extension of this philosophy, Signia can, he said, obtain better rates for their clients' cash by offering banks cumulatively large sums of liquidity in return for better deposit rates than the banks would quote for the underlying individual amounts.

In other words, this is “off-piste pricing" on lending and cash rates, Hayes said.

With a nod to his Irish market experience, Hayes he noted that hard lessons had been learned following the credit crunch in 2009 around the dangers of high gearing and lack of diversification in portfolios.

"The importance of diversification has been rammed home again, having been 'out of fashion' for a while during the heated property and credit markets of the mid 2000s. Another problem was high gearing; the view back then was `the more the merrier' and equity became so stretched across deals that it more resembled an option than a true economic interest,” he said.

On property, no direct property deals via joint ventures have been done so far.  "Our clients want us to act as a filter, to bring them what we regard as the best property deals and joint venture opportunities out there.  It's what I am used to doing and enjoy but we are taking our time to find the right first joint venture deal to introduce to our clients. I make no apologies about being very selective."

One issue that can come up is that clients can over time assemble a portfolio of property in a very unstructured and ad-hoc manner with inefficient loan arrangements and holding structures.

“The firm’s property advisory service gives them access to our experience, knowledge and contacts to help them evaluate potential new deals, and streamline and re-structure their existing holdings,” he said.  "It is proving very popular."