Swiss private bank thinks it'll be on the ground in S.A. before end of 2007. Zurich-based UBS plans to open a wealth-management office in South Africa in an attempt to capitalize on the economic growth in the continent's biggest economy.

"UBS is a globally active financial services firm with wealth management as a core business," Juerg Schalch, designated head of UBS Wealth Management South Africa, told Reuters last week. "We therefore target markets with a significant concentration of wealth. [Establishing] UBS Wealth Management South Africa will bring us even closer to our clients."

Rich is relative

UBS expects to have its South African wealth-management business up and running before this year is out. It is a response to a recent boom in personal wealth in South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa's largest and most diversified economy.

Though Africa south of the Sahara has a small high-net-worth population -- only around 100,000 in 2006, according to Capgemini -- this increased at a faster rate than any other region's population of U.S.-dollar millionaires.

And of course you don't have to be a U.S.-dollar millionaire to qualify as rich or attract the attention of private bankers in many places around the world -- especially if the source of your affluence is a thriving business.

It seems that UBS Wealth Management South Africa will have humble beginnings, however. "Picture a global financial firm with the heart and soul of a two-person organization," is how the bank's website description of its South African wealth-management services starts out. -FWR

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