The entire London-based wealth management team will move to Riverbank House, the latest example of wealth managers relocating in London.

RBC Wealth Management, part of Royal Bank of Canada, is relocating to new offices in London ahead of plans to grow its UK relationship manager headcount to 100 by 2015, WealthBriefing can exclusively reveal.

The 180-odd London-based wealth management team on Monday will move to the new office at Riverbank House, 2 Swan Lane. The building is just a short walk from their current offices at 71 and 77 Queen Victoria Street, EC4.

RBC is renting five floors in newly-built headquarters of the world’s largest hedge fund manager, Man Group. Employees of RBC Dexia, a joint custodian venture between RBC and investment manager Dexia, will also relocate to Riverbank House, as will some of the RBC capital markets team. 

The move comes in anticipation of aggressive growth of the bank's UK private client relationship manager headcount from just over 30 today, to 100 by 2015. 

"This new office space is proof of our ambitions and reflects RBC’s focus on further establishing the UK as the third ‘home’ market for our two global businesses, RBC Wealth Management and RBC Capital Markets. We see tremendous opportunities to grow our wealth management business in the UK, focusing on clients based in London and the South East. Riverbank House offers outstanding facilities which I know will be enjoyed by employees, clients and intermediaries alike," said Mike Moodie, head of RBC Wealth Management UK.

An RBC employee said: "These offices are definitely a massive step-up for us. We've already had a couple of clients in and their feedback has been really positive. I'm guessing that the onsite bar will be popular with staff in the evenings too!"

Situated just downriver from RBC Capital Markets’ main London offices at Thames Court, Riverbank House has panoramic views of the River Thames and Tower Bridge. The 292,000 square foot building is 10 storeys high and cost an estimated £250 million ($356 million) to build. The Corporation of London received planning permission for the building in 2006 and it was completed last May. 

Developed by Helical Bar and Pace Investments, it was reportedly designed as an alternative to the uniformity of Canary Wharf. The site was the former headquarters of now defunct investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, which quit the building to take Land Securities’ 380,000 square foot office at 30 Gresham Street, in 2004.

RBC Wealth is the latest in a string of wealth managers relocating within London. In July Swiss bank UBS controversially moved out of its Mayfair offices into a building in the heart of the City, bucking the trend of other private banks moving west, where they are more accessible to clients in wealthy neighbourhoods like Kensington, Knightsbridge and Mayfair.

Earlier this year JP Morgan Private Bank quit its London Wall offices for a new headquarters at One Knightsbridge, in the West End. Meanwhile, Barclays Wealth relocated some of its private bankers from its Canary Wharf building back to its old wealth management office in Mayfair's Brook Street.

Boutique wealth manager Signia Wealth last September left its offices near Bank, and moved to Mayfair's 1 Connaught Place. In July, UK private bank Kleinwort Benson moved from its home in the heart of the City, Gresham Street, to 14 St George Street in W1.