High-end advisory taps Fidelity to help it attract Latin American families. Multifamily office Bessemer Trust has put former Fidelity executive Cristian Segui-Clausen in charge of business development for its Latin American and international segments, a new position. He reports to Kerry Lynn Rapport, head of Bessemer's Miami office.

"Prominent families in Latin America and other international regions require a sophisticated, long-term approach to their often complex wealth-management needs," says Rapport.

The market

Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based GenSpring Family Offices, formerly Asset Management Advisors, also believes that commercial-family-office-style wealth management has a place in Latin America. This view informed its acquisition last year of TBK Investments, a Miami-based financial and investment advisory to wealthy families in the region.

Latin America's population of U.S.-dollar millionaires increased 10.2% to around 400,000 in 2006, according to Capgemini's most recent World Wealth Report -- a percentage point or slower than the high-net-worth population growth of sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, and a percentage point faster than the population increase of U.S. and Canadian millionaires. Total financial assets held by the region's millionaires increased 23.2% to $5.1 trillion in 2006, making it the world's liveliest region for high-wealth creation.

The demographics for ultra-high-net-worth advisory services in Latin America also look promising. Though there were only about 95,000 individuals with $30 million or more in financial assets on the planet in 2006, Latin America had the highest rate -- 2.5% -- of ultra-wealthy individuals as a percentage of total millionaire population.

Prominent foreign private banks have taken stakes in Latin American wealth managers in recent years: Switzerland's UBS and Credit Suisse and Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria come to mind. But few commercial multifamily offices -- which are more in evidence in the U.S. than elsewhere -- have taken the plunge.

Existing team

Segui-Clausen comes to Bessemer from Fidelity's Institutional Services Company (FIIS), where he was head of its office in Miami. FIIS is an outsourced investment- and insurance-product provider to independent broker-dealers, banks, trust companies and insurance companies.

Before he joined Fidelity, Segui-Clausen was based in Miami as head of Dublin-based asset manager Pioneer Investments' Latin American business -- and before that, he was based in Paris as head of Pioneer's European business-development efforts.

This background gives Segui-Clausen a particular understanding of the wealth-management needs and wants of multi-generational Latin American families, according to Thaddeus Shelly, head of Bessemer's mid-Atlantic, southern and southeastern U.S. regions.

"Cristian brings extensive international investment and advisory expertise to this position, and is committed, as we are, to our growing international client base," adds Shelly.

Though Segui-Clausen steps into a new position, he joins a team that has been operating in Bessemer's Miami office for the past three years, says Rapport. As head of business development for the Latin American team, Segui-Clausen will be working with senior relationship manager Fernando Mateu and legacy-planning attorney Suzanne Dewitt.

New York-based Bessemer has 13 offices in the U.S., one in London and one in the Cayman Islands. It oversees more than $50 billion for about 1,800 individuals, families and associated institutions. -FWR

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