People Moves
RBC Wealth Management Hires Two Directors In London
RBC Wealth Management has appointed Simon Smales and Sean Costello as directors within its London-based UK private client team, WealthBriefing can exclusively reveal.
RBC Wealth Management has appointed Simon Smales and Sean Costello as directors within its London-based UK private client team, WealthBriefing can reveal.
RBC Wealth Management has been rapidly growing its roster of UK-based relationship managers, recruiting 20 new additions since the start of the year for the team led by Philip Harris, head of UK private client wealth management.
Costello joins from the wealth and investment management division of Barclays, where he was a vice president in the ultra high net worth and family office group working across London and New York.
Smales, meanwhile, latterly worked for HSBC Private Bank as a director responsible for a portfolio of UK private clients and where he collaborated closely with the global banking and markets team.
In their new roles Costello will focus on the UHNW segment and Smales will work on building a portfolio of UK-resident clients.
“Market insight and strong networks are crucial in a fiercely competitive and volatile environment. Sean and Simon bring with them a wealth of knowledge about our target markets, and I look forward to working closely with them,” Mike Moodie, head of RBC Wealth Management’s UK business, said in a statement.
RBC Wealth Management is in the process of expanding its business in the UK, which has become a standalone area of focus at the bank next to Canada, the US and emerging markets. In September last year, when the wealth manager moved to new offices at Riverbank House in London, it said that it had plans to triple its number of relationship managers in the UK to 100 by 2015.
In other expansionary moves, back in March, RBC Wealth Management agreed to buy the Latin American, Caribbean and African private banking business of Coutts, the wealth division of Royal Bank of Scotland Group. The business has client assets in excess of $2 billion, but the terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
