Month: February 2016
The most important player in Islamic finance in London is the UK Government
Dermot O’Reilly, consultant at Amanie Advisors, says there will be increased activity in the debt capital market as continued low oil prices increase the fiscal strain on both GCC governments and corporates.
read moreLondon based insurers bring sharia compliant products and services to market
Michael Williams, CEO of BLME, Bank of London and the Middle East says the UK says Middle Eastern investors increasingly invest in UK assets as a flight to safety.
read moreIslamic banks offer limited private banking facilities when compared to Western banks
Simon Archer, visiting professor at the International Capital Markets Association, Henley Business School, says the main problem for Islamic financial institutions during the crunch was a drop in the level of business rather than defaults.
read moreIslamic finance forbids ‘gharar’ investments: anything risky or speculative
Nada Jarnaz, senior associate, finance team, Taylor Wessing says Islamic financial institutions are becoming more competitive and are heavily relationship based with personalised, high-end service.
read moreSouthwest booming thanks to local entrepreneurs
Wealth advisers in the Southwest of the UK are enjoying some of their busiest times for years, with accountants, lawyers and private bankers in and around Bristol, Bath and Exeter all reporting buoyant activity.
read morePremier league footballers are purchasing watches both as a luxury wear and as investment opportunities
Mark Blowers, managing director of Blowers Luxury Watches in Mayfair, London, also says one hedge fund manager in Geneva, has a collection valued at approximately £15m pounds.
read moreBritish-American actress Elizabeth Taylor collected jewels with historic provenance
Tim Corfield, senior expert at fine and decorative art advisory firm Corfield Morris, says ‘there is a lot of jewellery in the world and most of it is not very good’.
read moreThe best collection privately owned is the Patek Philippe collection in Geneva
Jonathan Darracott, global head of watches at Bonhams, talks about one of the largest private collection of timepieces belonging to a European with an estimated value of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
read morePolitically correct art will appeal to a wider audience and may increase value
Rebecca Foden and Becky Shaw, both solicitors at Boodle Hatfield, and Lily Le Brun, arts and culture writer, say that while art is not required to be politically correct in order to get financed, its appeal to a wider audience may increase its value.
read moreFast and furious financial acts cause confusion for UHNWIs in France
Clare Coe Smith analyses the impact of Francois Hollande’s four-year socialist presidency on the French private wealth industry.
read moreUnconscious bias training is needed to bolster diversity and inclusion in corporates
Anne-Marie Piper and David Hunt, both partners at Farrer & Co, also say that they provide coaching for those returning from family related leave and career breaks.
read moreSuccessful women have three things in common: they own it, they network and they give back
Gail McCourt, head of client experience and Wanda Brackins, head of global diversity of RBC Wealth Management, comment below and add that RBC’s board of directors has thirty-one per cent women and three of the seven executive members reporting to their CEO are women.
read moreWomen in the US continue to earn less than men at every age range
Tamara Box, chair financial industry group at Reed Smith, says that some companies have endeavoured to establish a “seventy per cent rule”: no single majority group should account for more than seventy per cent of any leadership board.
read moreThe media focus on women on boards has missed the point
Kulbir Shergill, senior diversity and inclusion consultant at KPMG, says that until we see a shift in female representation in senior positions we will not see the cultural change that is needed for long-term sustainable inclusion.
read moreBusiness owner with no natural successor uses employee ownership trust to give stake to management team
Deborah Clark, partner at Mills & Reeve, talks about a case where a client didn’t want to sell his successful business despite not having a family member to take over the reins.
read moreClients using liquidity for new business ventures rather than investment portfolios
Edward Stone, partner at Berkeley Law, also says UHNWIs are increasingly seeking to retain control over their business when planning succession.
read moreAsian clients using BVI Vista structures to tailor benefits to children
Marcus Leese, partner at Ogier, says that the UHNW Chinese and Southeast Asian families are taking business transfer issues more seriously as the stakes are higher and recent high-profile dispute cases have rung alarm bells.
read moreEntrepreneurs prefer to sell their businesses, leaving liquid assets to their next gen’
Damian Bloom, partner BLP law, also says that more and more UHNWIs put younger family members on the board of the family foundation to teach them financial and fiduciary responsibility.
read moreMiddle Eastern clients don’t want to relinquish control
Anthony Thompson, partner and head of Private Capital, Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co, says that in the Middle East, the days of the simple discretionary trusts, to hold business assets, are long gone.
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