Goldman Sachs Boosts Bet on London to Target World’s Super-Rich

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has stepped up the expansion of its private-banking team in London as it builds out its operations targeting the world’s ultra-wealthy.

The New York-based bank has hired at least nine private-wealth advisors in the city this year from rivals including Barclays Plc, Julius Baer Group Ltd. and Union Bancaire Privee.

This month, Clement Hutton-Mills joined as a managing director in Goldman Sachs’s U.K. private-wealth unit from Rothschild & Co., building on the 60 or so advisors to the super-rich added in the past two years across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to a representative at the firm.

“We will continue to scale up as we see an opportunity to find the right talent and we see client demand,” Stefan Bollinger, Goldman Sachs’s co-head of private-wealth management for EMEA, said in an interview. “The U.K. is a highlight for our endeavor to grow the business.”

Goldman Sachs is boosting its wealth-management and consumer-banking unit as part of a strategy outlined by Chief Executive Officer David Solomon to make it less reliant on trading revenue. Other global banks are also vying for a greater share of the wealth created in recent years, driving fierce competition for advisers who can bring billions of dollars in client assets.

Former Barclays private bankers Pedro Dias Ferreira, Manuela Maia and Selina-Valencia McDonald all began at Goldman Sachs in London over the past few months, according to their LinkedIn profiles. James Westropp joined from Julius Baer around the same time and Fiona MacLeod started earlier in the year after leaving UBP. The bank also expanded its private-wealth team in the Middle East this month and hired former UBS Group AG executive Gabriel Aractingi this year to lead its business in the region.

Revenue at Goldman Sachs’s wealth-management and consumer unit rose 35% to $2 billion in the third quarter from a year earlier. It had about $694 billion of assets under supervision at the end of September.

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