As banks fight to stand out to catch the eye – and the business – of high net worth individuals, one Swiss firm plying its trade in Asia likes to stress the closeness of its work with entrepreneurs.

As banks fight to stand out to catch the eye – and the business – of high net worth individuals, one Swiss firm plying its trade in Asia likes to stress the closeness of its work with entrepreneurs.

Reyl Singapore, a subsidiary of Switzerland’s Reyl, isn’t maybe the biggest firm operating out of the Asian city-state – it has eight employees – but in its own way is making a mark with double-digit percentage asset growth over the past 12 months.

“Reyl is a family-owned bank known for its family culture. It makes a difference when you are talking to clients who are entrepreneurs themselves. The intensity of the relationship is what differentiates us,” Nicolas Duchêne, chief executive Reyl Singapore, told this publication in a recent interview.

Relationship managers at Reyl Singapore, notably in Asia and at Reyl Private Office, will often be oriented on individuals who have run their own businesses, or who have long expertise in the corporate banking sector. “Our RMs are different from the traditional RM,” said Duchêne. (The Reyl Private Office team, besides Duchêne, is composed of Thomas Fontaine, Irina Bulychova, Christine Theiler, Karim Reziouk, Mathieu Villaume, Caroline Ling; L. Delamontagne, Jessica Schaedler and Rakesh Dabasia.)

"We understand the various issues and competing objectives that our clients face. We stand alongside our clients and their families to internalise and balance the trade-offs between growth and income, risk and return, spending and security, and wealth transfer and wealth control,” he continued.

To serve such clients, RMs and other bankers need to understand the dynamics of a client’s business. “The banker here is in a position to advice on potential acquisitions or expansion. Some ideas and investments can be provided by the existing Reyl professional network. Everybody uses the expertise of others,” he said.

Duchêne has held his current post for just over a year after being appointed last August. He began his career at Arthur Andersen in 2000 and has amassed experience in Asia in Hong Kong and Singapore as well as through other traditional wealth management centres in Luxembourg, Geneva and Monaco. After spending three years at Banque Ferrier & Lullin, he joined BNP Paribas Private Banking in 2004 and headed the bank’s international wealth planning activities in Asia from 2007 to 2009. He made the switch to Reyl in November 2009.

Duchêne’s employers have reason to be pleased with his record so far since taking the CEO slot. In the last 12 months, Reyl Singapore’s assets under management grew by 60 per cent and he says the firm is on track to hit its target of S$500 million ($393.8 million) by the end of 2013.

The firm’s progress comes at a time when Geneva-headquartered Reyl has been expanding elsewhere around the world. In London, for example, the 40-year-old firm – a relative youngster compared with some Swiss banks – set up an office. On a bullish note, Reyl, across all its businesses, in May recorded a surge in assets under management of 61.8 per cent in 2012 to SFr7.3 billion ($7.6 billion). Revenues for the year reached SFr71.7 million, a gain of 34 per cent from the previous period.

Adding value

Reyl Singapore holds a full capital markets services licence for fund management.

Reyl Singapore works in four areas: portfolio management in which it customises investment portfolios to cater to clients’ needs; private office services aimed at meeting the most sophisticated requirements of clients, notably relating to international tax and legal matters, as well as lifestyle services; asset management with a diversified range of funds, and corporate advisory services to help clients’ further grow their businesses and to introduce club deals or co-investment opportunities.

Reyl Group provides a wide range of services such as, for example, creating funds and other structures so that its clients can join forces to work on projects, Duchêne said.

“We go out and view their project in the field, together with them [clients],” he said, citing examples of where the firm has been to China and Thailand, for example, on such assignments.

As so much Asia wealth is first-generation, the understanding of succession and transfer of estate is vital, Duchêne said.

“We are not like some depository bank or asset manager; we act as a co-ordinator to get the best possible deal, services for each of our clients whether in-house or through externals experts,” he continued.

As an example of the detailed advice and support Reyl Singapore aims to provide, he gave the case of a client who wanted to buy a private aircraft for commercial uses and was advised on how to do this in the most tax-efficient manner by treating it as a business expense. Such details are often unknown to clients.

What all this suggests is that the job of RMs has become more complex since the “relatively easy” years of the 80s and 90s where banks could just concentrate on managing their client’s assets and not work too hard to make them grow. Swiss banks probably know more than most that the days of easy money are over and added value is the key. At Reyl Singapore, that message seems to be very clear.