Charlie Hoffman

Spear's Review

Success, in terms of revenues for a wealth management business, will naturally follow if the service ‘puts the client at the centre of everything you do’. That is the mantra Charlie Hoffman lives by, and which has helped grow the value of his book into the tens of billions of dollars. True to Hoffman’s philosophy, HSBC Private Banking’s structure of service forms a concentric circle around a client. The four pillars of its offering form a ‘virtual family office’ – there’s an investment team, a credit advisory team, global solutions advisers who provide the client with a direct link to the wider investment bank, and a dedicated wealth planning team. What Hoffman is most proud of, however, is the bank’s financing capability, especially since it has ‘lent an enormous amount of money’ to support his clients and their entrepreneurial ambitions.

Adviser Profile

Charlie looks after leading UHNW families, largely based in or which have links to the UK. He runs a small team that helps him look after each and every relationship. While small and select in client number, the book of business is arguably the largest of any banker in any bank in Europe. It is like a virtual family office focussing, with specialists around them, on succession, planning, wealth management, lending and banking.

'I have kept to our mantra over the years', says Charlie, 'keep the client at the centre of everything that you do and you will have the best outcome for client, bank and long term relationship'. We look after very long term relationships which often span generations.

As an international and universal bank, Charlie is often looking after relationships with assets also in Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong or Channel Islands. He is also often working with his colleagues in either the Corporate or Investment Bank in order to bring the best of HSBC to the client.

The Private Bank recently partnered with Blackrock, the world's largest money manager, in the use of Aladdin, the risk management tool devised by Blackrock and used by its institutional clients. 'I think we are the first Private Bank who has embarked on the full licence of Aladdin' says Charlie. 'This gives clients and family offices a unique insight into both our portfolio and assets held elsewhere'.

Charlie has continued to see clients invest heavily into private markets. 'HSBC deployed over $4 billion into private equity last year', he says, 'that provides us with unique co-invest and secondary opportunities'. If there are two thirds less IPOs than 20 years ago you have shrinking public markets, clients need to continue to focus more on the private ones’.