Credit Suisse will open its next private wealth office in the hedge fund capital of the US, Greenwich Connecticut, next month – a spokesman ...

Credit Suisse will open its next private wealth office in the hedge fund capital of the US, Greenwich Connecticut, next month – a spokesman told WealthBriefing while discussing the firm’s new location in Philadelphia. The global investment firm has been quietly growing its private wealth presence in North America – it added 67 relationship managers in the US in 2006, an increase of more than 23 per cent from a base of 290 at the beginning of the year. In the last 9 months of 2006 the group increased its US private wealth assets by around SFr10 billion ($8 billion) under the leadership of Anthony DeChellis, former head of the private wealth division of UBS Wealth Management, who was brought on in May last year to head the Private Banking unit’s aggressive push into the Americas. In the second half of 2006 the group added two new locations in Orange County California and Rye in Westchester County New York. The Philadelphia office is the newest addition to the group and will add up to 25 relationship managers in the next three years, said Richard Jaffe, managing director of Credit Suisse private banking, Philadelphia. Mr Jaffe, formerly with private US investment firm, Miller Investment Management, will start the Philadelphia operations with the recruitment of three Credit Suisse advisors who will be moved from the group’s New York headquarters. “I see the critical mass of the business to be around 25 advisors… how quickly it grows will depend on our ability to bring on new talent,” he said. Credit Suisse currently has a presence in Boston, Atlanta, New York, Baltimore, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas and Atlanta. A spokesman said Mr DeChellis intended to add more offices in the US to fill-out the firm’s national presence, possibly in the mid-west and the south of the country.