Kate Leppard, Deputy Head of Wealth Management for Cazenove Capital Management tells us the history of her firm’s merger and what they can do for your investments.
Can you briefly describe Cazenove Capital Management’s history and how the firm now stands in terms of its UK presence?
Cazenove Capital Management is the wealth management business of Schroders plc in the UK, Channel Islands and Asia. In 2013, Schroders and Cazenove Capital came together to create one of the preeminent wealth management firms providing a comprehensive wealth management service.
Our scale and capabilities for private clients and charities were significantly expanded in the UK and Channel Islands where we have offices in London, Chester, Edinburgh, Oxford, Jersey and Guernsey.
Both Schroders and Cazenove have their history in trade finance that saw the City of London develop into a major commercial and financial centre in the beginning of the 19th Century with Schroders founded in 1804 as a merchant bank and Cazenove in 1823 as a stockbroker.
Can you tell us a little about the range of wealth management services Cazenove Capital Management offers? Do clients tend to engage first with Cazenove Capital Management through one of these strands over others?
We offer personalised discretionary and advisory investment services to a broad variety of both onshore and offshore clients, as well as wider wealth management services such as wealth planning, cash administration, deposit-taking and lending. We also provide custody, administration and reporting platforms which allow our clients to centralise their financial affairs with us with confidence.
The majority of our clients have a discretionary portfolio with us where we review each of their requirements to ensure that we look after their needs with the right individuals and services to manage their wealth.
Although you will obviously have a very diverse client base, can you describe what a ‘typical’ client of Cazenove Capital Management looks like? What stage of their life are they typically at and what are they trying to achieve with their wealth?
Each of our clients have specific financial needs and preferences, but all are focused on preserving and growing their wealth for the long term. Our clients typically range from a UK resident to a multi-jurisdictional, multi-currency family with associated advisers. Our in-house wealth planners are able to work with the client and the portfolio managers to help plan a strategy, regardless of what stage of life they may be at.
How does Cazenove Capital Management go about devising investment strategies and building portfolios which suit each individual client’s profile and needs? How do the firm manage risk?
We match our clients with the most appropriate teams to look after their portfolios. The chosen portfolio managers spend a great deal of time understanding our clients’ current and potential needs. When establishing each client’s investment strategy, our portfolio managers use a profiler in order to best establish each clients’ investment objectives and appropriate level of risk. We believe that investors should have a wide range of assets to create a well-diversified portfolio, although some clients will appoint us for specialist mandates within a specific asset class.
Asset selection is determined through our analysis of the global business cycle, with exposure to key asset classes and cyclical risk being guided by our assessment of where economies are positioned in the cycle.
The final blend of assets is determined by factors that are specific to each client, such as the amount of capital growth and income required, their time horizon, tax circumstances and the location of their assets, as well as their existing assets and liabilities.
We actively seek to have regular meetings with our clients and would aim to meet them at least once a year. At each of these meetings we would re-assess whether clients’ investment objectives and risk categorisation remain appropriate. In practise, however, more regular contact takes place including events, seminars, phone calls and emails.
How would you describe Cazenove Capital Management’s ethos and approach when it comes to servicing clients? Do you encourage one on one advisory relationships or do you take more of a team approach?
Our ethos will always be “clients come first”. Being a FTSE 100-listed company gives us discipline and transparency in the way we do our business. The Schroder family own over 47% of the company and it’s their ownership stability that allows us to build long-term relationships with our clients. We often build relationships with our clients over many years and across multiple generations and, as a result, we are fully aware of the importance of preserving the real value of their wealth.
Our approach means that each client is looked after by a team of three: a Portfolio Director and Portfolio Manager, who will both have a detailed knowledge of the portfolios, and a Client Services Executive who looks after the administration. A client may also have a named Wealth Planner as part of the team.
What is distinctive about Cazenove Capital Management, either in terms of its investment process or its manner of servicing clients?
We believe that we have four main strengths: ‘stability’, ‘intelligence’, ‘partnership’ and ‘performance’ that are not only a combination that sets us apart, but also strike a chord with clients as an attractive proposition.
The significant family ownership and financial strength of our parent company, Schroders, provides us with the stability which enables us to take a long-term view and focus on our clients and their best interests.
The access we have to the wider Schroder Group and therefore the unparalleled global investment expertise gives us the intelligence and flexibility to apply individual thinking to each client.
We pride ourselves on always having a detailed understanding of our clients with an uncompromising quality of service. Our longevity and experience allows us to take time to build relationships with real depth based on openness and transparency.
Finally, we have a proven record of meeting our clients’ individual objectives.
How does Cazenove Capital Management help clients engage more effectively with the management of their wealth? Do you help clients with investment education and research for example?
Our role at Cazenove Capital can often be educational. As our clients’ trusted adviser, we like to help build their confidence in us. Part of that can come from sharing our knowledge with our clients about their portfolios as well as more generally about markets and the economy.
We hold an annual private client seminar, where some of the UK’s leading investment managers engage with our clients and potential clients. This gives the clients an opportunity to listen to some well-established speakers give their views on the markets and on the economy.
Our quarterly client magazine, Dialogue, includes a range of topical pieces from pensions to classic cars and aims to appeal to our broad client base. Our investment specialists also provide monthly market updates and produce timely updates during turbulent markets.
We fully understand the importance of looking to the future and pride ourselves on developing the next generation. We run an annual young investor work experience day that is aimed at the children of clients to expand their knowledge in the world of investment as well as providing workshops including CV writing and interview skills.
If you would like to start a conversation with Cazenove Capital please contact the findaWEALTHMANAGEMENT.com team here.
