Barely three weeks before the US presidential election polling stations open on November 6, it is a good idea for yours truly to focus on an important sector of the world’s largest economy: the Bay Area of northern California.

San Francisco and Silicon Valley are home to some of the world’s richest people as well as a cluster of wealth management firms comprising banks, family offices and advisory businesses. (To view two articles reviewing the area, click here and here.) And yet California, an economy roughly the size of France, has also been undergoing some decidedly eurozone-style fiscal crises, with a number of municipalities in bankruptcy, such as San Barnadino, Stockton and Mammouth Lakes. Has some of the glow faded from the Golden State?

My trip – barring unforeseen events – will take me to the ultra high net worth team at Abbot Downing (part of Wells Fargo); Advent Software, the San Francisco-based wealth technology firm; Ascent Private Capital Management; Charles Schwab, the mighty brokerage firm; the Presidio Group (covering numerous financial sectors), and Silver Bridge, the multi-family office. These firms embrace a wide spectrum of the West Coast wealth management community, although of course many of these firms also operate nationwide. In the case of Abbot Downing, for example, it is a relative youngster, albeit part of the venerable Wells Fargo. 

Among the questions I want to put to firms are how they are adapting to a fast-shifting regulatory landscape (as in the case of say, the Dodd-Frank Act); what is the real impact of new technologies such as mobile devices; and how are firms able to show added value at a time of often negative real interest rates? Also, to paraphrase Mark Twain, has the death of the broker-dealer business model been greatly exaggerated?

As recounted in these pages, the issues that concern wealth managers have often made national media headlines, such as controversies about taxation on the wealthy and regulation of offshore financial activities. And those issues have also fed into the current election campaign, with tax policy featuring prominently.

Over the coming days, I hope to be able to shed more light on what California’s wealth management industry is doing in the face of many challenges. As always, I welcome reader responses and suggestions.