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MeesPierson To Move Into UK Private Wealth Market

Philip Morton, Investors Offshore.com

06 February 2001

MeesPierson, the wealth management arm of Dutch-Belgian financial giant Fortis, is reported to be opening a London office in the near future to tap into the UK's onshore and offshore wealth management market. MeesPierson lays claim to its website being "the champion of the high net worth individual" and offers expertise in areas including equities, bonds, tax law, estate planning and offshore investments.

Reuters reported last week that MeesPierson had confirmed plans for a London office but that precise details are sketchy at the current time. Its parent company, Fortis, is expanding agressively out of its home market in the Benelux country, and where better to set up shop than in London's fast-growing private banking scene? Fee-driven private banking is currently booming in the capital.

According to Reuters, an unnamed official from Fortis Bank in London would not reveal whether MeesPierson will focus on offshore or onshore private banking when it comes to London, nor whether the bank would try and infiltrate into providing investment services for the growing number of so-called "mass affluent" investors who are looking to manage sums of around £30,000 or more. If it does, it will be competing with major giants such as Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch/HSBC, who are all vying to win over Europe's wealthy investors.

Fortis, which aquired MeesPierson from Dutch banking group ABN Amro in 1996, has a solid reputation in private banking, which should stand its London operation in good stead. It already has private banking operations in
France, Spain, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Channel Islands.

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